IC-NI 


HEALTH  & 
WEAL  T  H 

BY  ELBERT  HUBBARD  OF  EAST  AURORA 


Wherein  is  pleasingly  told  how  to  be  happy — 
but  not  too  happy — and  yet  be  rich ;  containing 
thoughts,  always  sincere  and  sometimes  serious, 
concerning  the  best  methods  of  preventing  one 
from  becoming  a  burden  to  himself,  a  weari 
ness  to  his  friends,  a  trial  to  his  neighbors  and 
a  reflection  on  his  Maker  ^  &  &  &  &  &  jfi 


Done  into  a  Book  by  THE  ROYCROFTERS 
and  sold  by  them  at  their  Shop,  which 
also  is  in  East  Aurora,  N.  Y. ,  mcmviii 


Copyright 

1908 
By  Elbert  Hubbard 


HEALTH  AND  WEALTH 


I  am  not  bound  to  win,  but  I  am  bound  to  be 
true;  I  am  not  bound  to  succeed,  but  I  am 
bound  to  live  up  to  what  light  I  have  jfc 

— ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


Ring  out  a  slowly  dying  cause, 
And  ancient  forms  of  party  strife; 
Ring  in  the  nobler  modes  of  life, 

With  sweeter  manners,  purer  laws. 

Ring  in  the  valiant  man  and  free, 
The  larger  heart,  the  kindlier  hand; 
Ring  out  the  darkness  of  the  land, 

Ring  in  the  Christ  that  is  to  be. 

— TENNYSON 


M519859 


MAN  is  NOT  YET  CREATED — HE  is    ONLY 
IN  PROCESS 

INVOCATION 

MY  heart  goes  out  to  you,  O  Man, 
because   I   cannot   conceive   of  any 
being  greater,  nobler,  more  heroic, 
more  tenderly  loving,  loyal,  unselfish  and  endur 
ing  than  are  you. 

All  the  love  I  know  is  Man's  love.  All  the  for 
giveness  I  know  is  Man's  forgiveness.  All  the 
sympathy  I  know  is  Man's  sympathy.  Hence 
I  address  myself  to  Man — to  you — and  you 
I  would  serve. 

The  fact  that  you  are  a  human  being  brings 
you  near  to  me.  It  is  the  bond  that  unites  us. 
I  understand  you  because  you  are  a  part  of 
myself.  You  may  like  me  or  not — it  makes  no 
difference — if  ever  you  need  my  help,  I  am 
with  you.  Often  we  can  help  each  other  most  by 
leaving  each  other  alone ;  at  other  times  we  need 
the  hand-grasp  and  the  word  of  cheer.  I  am  only 
a  man — a  mere  man — but  in  times  of  loneliness, 
think  of  me  as  one  who  loves  his  kind.  What 
your  condition  is  in  life  will  not  prejudice  me, 
either  for  or  against  you.  What  you  have  done 
or  not  done  will  not  weigh  in  the  scale. 


HEALTH     AND      WEALTH 

If  you  have  been  wise  and  prudent,  I  congratu 
late  you,  unless  you  are  unable  to  forget  how 
wise  and  good  you  are,  then  I  pity  you.  If  you 
have  stumbled,  fallen  and  been  mired  in  the 
mud,  and  have  failed  to  be  a  friend  to  yourself, 
then  you  of  all  men  need  friendship  and  I  am 
your  friend.  I  am  the  friend  of  convicts,  insane 
people  and  fools — successful  and  unsuccessful, 
college-bred  and  illiterate. 
You  all  belong  to  my  church. 
I  could  not  exclude  you  if  I  would  jfc  But  if  I 
should  shut  you  out,  I  would  then  close  the  door 
upon  myself  and  be  a  prisoner,  indeed. 
The  Spirit  of  Love  that  flows  through  me  and 
of  which  1  am  a  part,  is  your  portion,  too.  The 
race  is  one  and  we  trace  to  a  common  Divine 
Ancestry  jt  ^t 

I  offer  you  no  reward  for  being  loyal  to  me,  and 
surely  I  do  not  threaten  you  with  pain,  penalty 
and  dire  ill  fortune  if  you  are  indifferent  to  me. 
If  You  cannot  win  me  by  praise  or  adulation, 
^f  You  cannot  shut  my  heart  against  you,  even 
though  you  deny  and  revile  me. 
Only  the  good  can  reach  me,  and  no  thought  of 
love  you  send  me  can  be  lost  or  missent. 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

All  the  kindness  you  feel  for  me  should  be  given 
to  those  nearest  you,  and  it  shall  all  be  passed 
to  your  credit,  for  you  yourself  are  the  record 
of  your  thoughts,  and  no  error  can  occur  in  the 
count. 

You  belong  to  my  church,  and  always  and  for 
ever  my  friendship  shall  follow  you,  yet  never 
intrude  jt  Js, 

I  do  not  ask  you  to  incur  obligations  or  make 
promises.  There  are  no  dues.  I  do  not  demand 
that  you  shall  do  this  and  not  do  that.  I  issue  no 
commands. 

I  cannot  lighten  your  burden  and  perhaps  I 
should  not,  even  if  I  could,  for  men  grow 
strong  thru  bearing  burdens.  If  I  can,  I  will 
show  you  how  to  acquire  strength  to  meet  all 
your  difficulties,  and  face  the  duties  of  the  day. 
If  It  is  not  for  me  to  take  charge  of  your  life,  for 
surely  I  do  well  if  I  look  after  one  person  &  If 
you  err,  it  is  not  for  me  to  punish  you.  We  are 
punished  by  our  sins,  not  for  them. 
Soon  or  late  I  know  you  will  see  that  to  do  right 
brings  Good,  and  to  do  wrong  brings  misery, 
but  you  will  abide  by  the  Law  and  all  good 
things  will  be  yours.  I  cannot  change  these  laws 


ii 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

—I  cannot  make  you  exempt  from  your  own 
blunders  and  mistakes. 

And  you  cannot  change  the  Eternal  Laws  for 
me,  even  though  you  die  for  me. 
But  perhaps  I  can  point  you  the  pathway  that 
leads  to  Love,  Truth  and  Usefulness,  and  this 
I  want  to  do,  because  I  am  your  friend  &  And 
then  by  pointing  you  the  way  I  find  it  myself. 
You  belong  to  me — you  are  a  member  of  my 
church — all  are  members  of  my  church,  none 
are  excluded  or  can  be  excluded.  So  over  the 
plains  and  prairies,  over  the  mountains  and 
seas,  over  the  cities  and  towns,  in  palaces, 
tenements,  moving- wagons,  dugouts,  cottages, 
hovels,  sleeping-cars,  day-coach,  caboose,  cab, 
in  solitary  cells  behind  prison  bars,  or  wander 
ing  out  under  the  stars,  my  heart  goes  out  to 
you,  whoever  you  are,  and  I  wish  you  well  ^ 
Only  love  do  I  send,  and  a  desire  to  bless  and 
benefit.  AMEN. 


12 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 
To  PLOW  is  TO  PRAY 

A   Prayer 

THE  supreme  prayer  of  my  heart  is  not 
to  be  learned,  rich,  famous,  powerful, 
or  "good,"  but  simply  to  be  radiant  ^fc 
I  desire  to  radiate  health,  cheerfulness,  calm 
courage  and  good  will,  ^f  I  wish  to  live  without 
hate,  whim,  jealousy,  envy,  fear.  I  wish  to  be 
simple,  honest,  frank,  natural,  clean  in  mind 
and  clean  in  body,  unaffected — to  say  "I  do  not 
know,"  if  it  be  so,  and  to  meet  all  men  on  an 
absolute  equality — to  face  any  obstacle  and 
meet  every  difficulty  unabashed  and  unafraid. 
If  I  wish  others  to  live  their  lives,  too — up  to  their 
highest,  fullest  and  best.  To  that  end  I  pray  that 
I  may  never  meddle,  interfere,  dictate,  give 
advice  that  is  not  wanted,  or  assist  when  my 
services  are  not  needed.  If  I  can  help  people, 
I  '11  do  it  by  giving  them  a  chance  to  help  them 
selves  ;  and  if  I  can  uplift  or  inspire,  let  it  be  by 
example,  inference  and  suggestion,  rather  than 
by  injunction  and  dictation.  That  is  to  say, 

I  DESIRE  TO  BE  RADIANT — TO  RADIATE  LIFE. 

13 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 
MUTUALITY,  RECIPROCITY,  CO-OPERATION 

Declaration 

I  HOLD  these  truths  to  be  self-evident: 
That  man  was  made  to  be  happy; 
That  happiness  is  only  attainable  through 
useful  effort; 

That  the  best  way  to  help  ourselves  is  to  help 
others; 

That  useful  effort  means  the  proper  exercise  of 
all  our  faculties ; 

That  we  grow  only  through  this  exercise; 
That  education  should  continue  through  life, 
and  the  joys  of  mental  endeavor  should  be, 
especially,  the  solace  of  the  old; 
That  where  men  alternate  work,  study  and  play 
in  right  proportion,  the  brain  is  the  last  organ  of 
the  body  to  fail.  Death  for  such  has  no  terrors ; 
That  the  possession  of  wealth  can  never  make  a 
man  exempt  from  useful,  manual  labor; 
That  if  all  would  work  a  little,  none  would  be 
overworked; 

That  if  no  one  wasted,  all  would  have  enough; 
Tf  That  if  none  were  overfed,  none  would  be 

underfed ; 
14 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

That  the  rich  and  "educated"  need  education 
quite  as  much  as  the  poor  and  illiterate; 
That  the  presence  of  a  serving  class  is  an  indict 
ment  and  a  disgrace  to  our  civilization; 
That  the  disadvantage  of  having   a  serving 
class  falls  most  upon  those  who  are  served,  and 
not  upon  those  who  serve — just  as  the  real  curse 
of  slavery  falls  upon  the  slave-owner; 
That  the  presence  of  a  serving  class  tends  toward 
dissolution  instead  of  co-operation; 
That  the  people  who  are  waited  on  by  a  serving 
class  cannot  have  a  just  consideration  for  the 
rights  of  others,  and  that  they  waste  both  time 
and  substance,  both  of  which  are  lost  forever, 
and  can  only  partially  be  made  good  by  addi 
tional  human  effort; 

That  the  person  who  lives  on  the  labor  of  others, 
not  giving  himself  in  return  to  the  best  of  his 
ability,  is  really  a  consumer  of  human  life; 
That  the  best  way  to  abolish  a  serving  class  is 
for  all  to  join  it; 

That  in  useful  service  there  is  no  high  nor  low ; 
That  all  duties,  offices  and  things  which  are  use 
ful  and  necessary  are  sacred,  and  that  nothing 

else  is  or  can  be. 

is 


HEALTH     AND      WEALTH 

HEALTH  Is  THE  MOST  NATURAL  THING  IN 
THE  WORLD 

Health   and   Habit 

IF  you  have  health,  you  probably  will  be 
happy;  and  if  you  have  health  and  happi 
ness,  you  will  have  all  the  wealth  you  need, 
even  if  not  all  you  want. 

Health  is  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world. 
It  is  natural  to  be  healthy  because  we  are  a  part 
of  Nature — we  are  Nature.  Nature  is  try  ing  hard 
to  keep  us  well,  because  she  needs  us  in  her 
business. 

Nature  needs  man  so  he  will  be  useful  to  other 
men  ^t  & 

The  rewards  of  life  are  for  service. 
And  the  penalties  of  life  are  for  selfishness. 
If  Human  service  is  the  highest  form  of  self- 
interest  for  the  person  who  serves. 
We  preserve  our  sanity  only  as  we  forget  self  in 
service. 

To  center  on  one's  self,  and  forget  our  relation 
ship  to  society  is  to  summon  misery,  and  misery 
means  disease. 

16 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

Unhappiness  is  an  irritant.  It  affects  the  heart 
beats  or  circulation  first;  then  the  digestion,  and 
the  person  is  ripe  for  two  hundred  and  nineteen 
diseases,  and  six  hundred  and  forty-two  com 
plications  Jk  ejt 

Nothing  you  can  take  out  of  a  bottle  or  that  you 
can  rub  on,  will  remove  the  cause  of  misery. 
"Medicine  is  only  palliative,"  says  Dr.  Weir 
Mitchell,  "for  back  of  disease  lies  the  cause, 
and  this  cause  no  drug  can  reach. " 
"I've  got  a  cold  in  my  head,"  said  the  man  to 
the  wise  doctor. 

And  the  doctor  replied,  "Doubtless,  for  that  is 
the  only  place  where  the  microbe  abides. " 
People  who  dread  disease  and  fear  disease  have 
disease  £>  <£> 

The  recipe  for  good  health  is  this:  Forget  it. 
If  What  we  call  diseases  are  merely  symptoms 
of  mental  conditions. 

Our  bodies  are  automatic,  and  thinking  about 
your  digestion  does  not  aid  you  ^t  Rather  it 
hinders,  since  the  process  of  thinking,  especially 
anxious  thinking,  robs  the  stomach  of  its  blood, 
and  transfers  it  to  the  head. 

If  you  are  worried  enough,  digestion  will  stop 

17 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

absolutely,  ^f  The  moral  is  obvious :  Don't  Worry. 
"This  horse  is  all  right,  unless  he  gets  scared," 
said  a  horseback  rider  to  me,  the  other  day. 
And  I  answered,  "So  am  I!" 
In  public  speaking  I  have  often  noticed  that 
when  I  am  anxious  to  make  a  big  speech,  I 
grow  fearful  about  my  voice,  and  begin  to  dis 
trust  my  memory.  The  result  is  that  I  have  to 
push  that  speech  ahead  of  me  for  the  whole 
blessed  hour  and  a  half,  and  am  conscious  of 
my  feet  and  aware  of  my  hands  all  the  time  jt 
The  result  is  a  strictly  Class  B  oratorical  effort. 
If  That  is  to  say,  it  was  an  effort  and  not  a  pleas 
ure  for  either  the  speaker  or  the  audience.  For 
a  speaker  supplies  the  mood  for  the  audience. 
If  the  speaker  is  happy,  the  audience  is,  also. 
And  as  before  hinted,  we  are  only  happy  when 
we  forget  ourselves  and  do  not  know  whether 
we  are  happy  or  not. 

Those  rare  times  when  I  make  a  big  impression 
upon  my  auditors  are  when  I  go  upon  the  stage 
with  a  certain  amount  of  indifference,  simply 
taking  care  not  to  have  over-eaten.  Then  I  start 
in  slowly,  and  soon  the  thoughts  are  coming 
along,  just  as  fast  as  I  can  use  them.  The  air  is 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

full  of  reasons,  and  all  I  have  to  do  is  to  reach 

up  and  pick  the  ones  I  want. 

With  good  health  it  is  the  same — just  a  few 

plain  rules,  and  the  whole  matter  is  automatic 

and  self-lubricating.  Health  is  a  habit. 

We  are  ruled  by  habit. 

There  are  three  habits  which,  with  but  one 

condition  added,  will  give  you  everything  in  the 

world  worth  having,  and  beyond  which  the 

imagination  of  man  cannot  conjure  forth  a  single 

addition  or  improvement.  These  habits  are: 

THE  WORK  HABIT. 
THE  HEALTH  HABIT. 

THE  STUDY  HABIT. 

If  you  are  a  man  and  have  these  habits,  and 
also  have  the  love  of  a  woman  who  has  these 
same  habits,  you  are  in  Paradise  now  and  here, 
and  so  is  she. 

Health,  Books  and  Work,  with  Love  added,  are 
a  solace  for  all  the  stings  and  arrows  of  outra 
geous  fortune — a  defense  'gainst  all  the  storms 
that  blow,  for  through  their  use  you  transmute 
sadness  into  mirth,  trouble  into  ballast,  pain 
into  joy. 

Do  you  say  that  religion  is  still  needed  ? 

19 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

Then  I  answer  that  Work,  Study,  Health  and 

Love  constitute  religion.  Moreover,  any  religion 

that  leaves  out  any  one  of  these  four  ingredients 

is  not  religion,  but  fetich. 

And  yet  most  formal  religions  have  pronounced 

the  love  of  man  for  woman  and  woman  for  man 

an  evil  thing. 

They  have  proclaimed  labor  a  curse. 

They  have  said  that  sickness  was  sent  from  God ; 

and  they  have  whipped  and  scorned  the  human 

body  as  something  despicable,  and  thus  have 

placed  a  handicap  on  health,  and  made  the 

doctor  a  necessity. 

And  they  have  said  that  mental  attainment  was 

a  vain  and  frivolous  thing,  and  that  our  reason 

was  a  lure  to  lead  us  on  to  the  eternal  loss  of 

our  soul's  salvation. 

Now,  we  deny  it  all,  and  again  proclaim  that 

these  will  bring  you  all  the  good  there  is — 

Health,  Work,  Study— Love! 

Work  means  safety  for  yourself  and  service  to 

mankind.  Health  means  much  happiness  and 

potential  power  jt  Study  means  knowledge, 

equanimity  and  the  evolving  mind.  Love  means 

all  the  rest! 
20 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

But  Love  must  be  a  matter  of  reciprocity,  not  a 
one-sided  affair.  "I  love  you  because  you  love 
the  things  that  I  love. " 

A  man  who  marries  a  woman  in  order  to 
educate  her,  falls  a  victim  to  the  same  fallacy 
that  the  woman  does  who  marries  a  man  expect 
ing  to  reform  him. 

If  you  marry  a  woman  who  is  not  on  your  mental 
wire,  you'll  either  go  down  to  her  level  or  you 
will  live  in  a  water-tight  compartment  and  go 
to  purgatory  through  mental  asphyxiation. 
Choose  this  day  the  habits  you  would  have 
rule  over  you. 

To  KNOW  ALL  Is  To  FORGIVE  ALL 

The    Things    We    Know 

IN  courts  of  law  the  phrase  "I  believe"  has 
no  standing.  Never  a  witness  gives  testi 
mony  but  that  he  is  cautioned  thus,  "Tell 
us  what  you  know,  not  what  you  believe." 
If  In  theology,  belief  has  always  been  regarded 
as  more  important  than  that  which  your  senses 
say  is  so. 
Almost  without  exception  "belief"  is  a  legacy, 

21 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

an  importation — something  borrowed,  an  echo, 
and  often  an  echo  of  an  echo. 
The  Creed  of  the  Future  will  begin,  "I  know," 
not  "I  believe."  And  this  creed  will  not  be 
forced  upon  the  people.  It  will  carry  with  it 
no  coercion,  no  blackmail,  no  promise  of  an 
eternal  life  of  idleness  and  ease  if  you  accept 
it,  and  no  threat  of  hell  if  you  don't.  It  will 
have  no  paid,  professional  priesthood,  claiming 
honors,  rebates  and  exemptions,  nor  will  it  hold 
estates  free  from  taxation.  It  will  not  organ 
ize  itself  into  a  system,  marry  itself  to  the  State, 
and  call  on  the  police  for  support.  It  will  be 
reasonable,  so  in  the  line  of  self-preservation 
that  no  sane  man  or  woman  will  reject  it,  and 
when  we  really  begin  to  live  it  we  will  cease  to 
talk  about  it. 

As  a  suggestion  and  first  rough  draft,  I  submit 
this— I  KNOW: 
That  I  am  here 

In  a  world  where  nothing  is  permanent  but 
change, 

And  that  in  degree  I,  myself,  can  change  the 
form  of  things 
And  influence  a  few  people; 


22 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

And  that  I  am  influenced  by  these  and  other 
people; 

That  I  am  influenced  by  the  example  and  by 
the  work  of  men  who  are  no  longer  alive, 
And  that  the  work  I  now  do  will  in  degree  influ 
ence  people  who  may  live  after  my  life  has 
changed  into  other  forms; 
That  a  certain  attitude  of  mind  and  habit  of 
action  on  my  part  will  add  to  the  peace,  happi 
ness  and  well-being  of  other  people, 
And  that  a  different  thought  and  action  on  my 
part  will  bring  pain  and  discord  to  others; 
That  if  I  would  secure  reasonable  happiness  for 
myself,  I  must  give  out  good- will  to  others; 
That  to  better  my  own  condition  I  must  prac 
tice  mutuality; 

That  bodily  health  is  necessary  to  continued 
and  effective  work; 
That  I  am  largely  ruled  by  habit; 
That  habit  is  a  form  of  exercise; 
That  up  to  a  certain  point,  exercise  means 
increased  strength  or  ease  in  effort; 
That  all  life  is  the  expression  of  spirit; 
That  my  spirit  influences  my  body, 

And  my  body  influences  my  spirit; 

23 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

That  the  universe  to  me  is  very  beautiful,  and 

everything  and  everybody  in  it  good  and  beau 

tiful,  when    my  body  and  my   spirit   are   in 

harmonious  mood; 

That  my  thoughts  are   hopeful    and    helpful 

unless  I  am  filled  with  fear, 

And  that  to  eliminate  fear  my  life  must  be  dedi 

cated  to  useful  work  —  work  in  which  I  forget 

myself; 

That  fresh  air  in  abundance,  and  moderate, 

systematic  exercise  in  the  open  air  are  the  part 

of  wisdom; 

That  I  cannot  afford,  for  my  own  sake,  to  be 

resentful  nor  quick  to  take  offense; 

That  happiness  is  a  great  power  for  good, 

And  that  happiness  is  not  possible  without 

moderation  and  equanimity  ; 

That  time  turns  all  discords  into  harmony  if 

men  will  but  be  kind  and  patient, 

And  that  the  reward  which  life  holds  out  for 

work  is  not  idleness  nor  rest,  nor  immunity 

from  work,  but  increased  capacity,  GREATER 

DIFFICULTIES,  MORE  WORK. 


24 


HEALTH     AND      WEALTH 

GOSSIPS  LIE  LIKE  EPITAPHS 

The    Gossip    Microbe 

THE  person  who  plays  pitch-and-toss 
with  your  good  name  is  not  necessarily 
your  enemy. 

Probably  if  you  go  to  him  quietly  and  ask 
a  favor,  he  will  be  glad  to  grant  it,  and  will 
consider  it  an  honor  to  exert  himself  in  your 
behalf.  His  unkind  remarks  are  the  result  of  the 
Gossip-Habit.  He  talks  to  hear  himself  talk- 
nothing  is  quite  so  pleasing  to  his  ears  as  the 
sound  of  his  own  bazoo.  To  have  others  listen 
to  his  vaporings  is  gratifying  to  his  vanity. 
He  dissects  the  life  and  belittles  the  motives  of 
anybody  and  everybody  who  are  not  present. 
Should   the   person   reviled   suddenly  appear 
upon  the  scene,  the  theme  quickly  changes,  and 
the  newcomer  is  treated  with  kindly  deference, 
and  is  regaled  by  hearing  the  character  of  some 
one  else  ripped  up  into  carpet-rags. 
The  Gossip  Microbe  is  born  of  vacuity,  and 
breeds  best  in  idle  minds. 
If  you  do  not  hear  what  the  scandalmonger 

says,  you  are  not  harmed.  As  for  those  who  hear 

25 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

him,  they  are  not  influenced  against  you  by  what 
he  says,  and  for  the  most  part  his  words  die  on 
the  empty  air. 

He  injures  no  one  but  himself. 
However,  the  person  who  comes  and  tells  you 
what  the  loquacious  one  says  about  you,  is  a 
positive  pest.  His  action  is  unforgivable  and 
unpardonable.  He  robs  you  of  your  peace  oi 
mind.  The  idle  charges  when  told  over  again 
take  on  a  different  color  and  become  realities. 
So  to  repeat:  The  individual  who  rails  on  me 
behind  my  back  is  very  seldom  my  enemy;  the 
person  who  comes  to  me  and  tells  me  what  he 
says,  is. 

The  first  I  '11  pardon,  the  latter  forever  is  tabu- 
let  his  name  be  anathema.  He  is  one  who  magni 
fies  idle  nothings  and  vacuous  vaporings  until 
they  become  noxious  gases. 
The  man  who  talks  gossip  is  a  fool ;  but  the  one 
who  repeats  it  is  a  rogue.  Your  friends  are  those 
who  tell  you  the  kind  things  that  are  said  oi 
you;  your  enemies  are  those  who,  in  the  hoh 
name  of  friendship,  come  to  you  and  poison 
your  atmosphere  by  the  other  thing. 

That  plan  of  the  king  in  the  olden  time  whc 
26 


HEALTH     AND      WEALTH 

killed  the  messenger  that  brought  him  bad 
news,  has  my  approval.  Blessed  are  the  feet 
of  those  who  bring  GLAD  TIDINGS 

IT  Is  A  GREAT  THING  TO  BE  A  MAN 

Vance    of    Edmonton 

AT  Winnipeg  a  man  came  down  from 
Edmonton  to  attend  my  lecture  ^t 
Edmonton  is  eight  hundred  miles 
from  Winnipeg.  It  takes  two  days  and  a  night 
to  come,  and  the  same  to  go  back. 
The  man's  name  is  Vance.  He  said  he  did  n't 
want  to  miss  the  chance  when  I  was  so  close. 
He  was  an  Irishman.  "Doubtless,"  I  hear  the 
merry  chorus  chime,  "the  Irish  are  such  a  fond, 
foolish  and  impulsive  people!" 
Vance  arrived  the  day  before  the  lecture  so  to 
make  sure  to  secure  a  ticket  and  get  accommo 
dations  at  the  hotel. 

He  had  no  trouble  in  getting  his  ticket,  and  was 
accommodated  all  right  at  the  hotel. 
An  hour  before  the  lecture  was  set  to  begin, 
Vance  was  there  holding  down  a  front  seat  ^t 

The  church  seats  twelve  hundred — only  eight 

27 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

hundred  were  at  the  lecture.  If  Many  people  in 
Winnipeg  did  not  go. 

Vance  was  amazed  at  sight  of  empty  pews.  He 
thought  it  stood  for  Winnipeg  empty  heads.  I 
tried  to  tell  him  that  Winnipeg  people  in  point 
of  intelligence  were  far  above  the  average — that 
people  interested  in  advanced  thought  were 
very  few — and  that  if  one's  virtue  consisted  in 
outstripping  popularity,  it  was  quite  absurd  to 
expect  to  be  popular. 
He  could  not  quite  see  it. 

Vance  came  eight  hundred  miles  to  see  me,  and 
some  day  I  '11  go  eight  hundred  miles  to  see  him. 
But  no  matter  how  far  Vance  travels,  he  '11  never 
find  a  man  any  finer  than  he  sees  when  he  looks 
into  a  mirror. 

He  is  a  type  that  is  peculiar,  unique,  strange, 
but  well  defined — an  honest,  simple  and  direct 
man.  Vance  is  six  feet  tall  and  weighs  over  two 
hundred  pounds  jfc  All  of  his  forty  odd  and 
strange  years  have  been  spent  in  lumber  camps, 
rafting  on  rivers,  on  the  plains,  far  from  so-called 
centers  of  civilization.  All  the  seamy  side  of  life 
to  him  is  familiar,  yet  his  soul  has  never  been 

seared  with  pitch.  He  is  so  truthful,  unaffected 
28 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

and  sincere,  that  he  commands  the  earnest 
respect  of  every  one  he  meets.  It  never  occurs 
to  him  to  lie. 

The  size  of  the  man  may  help  a  little,  not  to 
mention  his  big,  homely  Irish  mug. 
Vance  has  had  time  to  read  and  time  to  think. 
Not  only  has  he  read  books,  but  he  has  com 
mitted  them  to  memory.  Give  him  the  first  line 
of  any  of  Byron's  poems,  and  if  you  don't  look 
out,  he  will  give  you  the  rest.  He  knows  his 
Shakespeare ;  has  read  Browning  enough  to  dis 
like  him;  dotes  on  Reedy;  loves  Tom  Moore; 
revels  in  Stevenson;  takes  a  shy  at  Burton; 
reverences  the  Mosher  books.  He  talks  to  you 
solemnly  of  the  "Big  Five" — Darwin,  Huxley, 
Tyndall,  Spencer  and  Alfred  Russel  Wallace. 
"Travels  in  Malay  "  by  Wallace  is  to  him  a  text 
book.  Ingersoll  he  regards  as  a  trifle  flippant — 
he  has  lived  so  much  within  himself  he  does  not 
joke.  Thomas  Paine  he  admires,  as  he  does 
Hume,  Buckle,  Haeckel  and  Lecky. 
When  Vance  talks  it  is  in  a  slow,  measured 
monotone.  He  weighs  his  words;  speaks  with 
precision,  but  with  great  courtesy  and  defer 
ence.  He  is  a  good  listener,  yet  when  you  take  his 

29 


HEALTH     AND      WEALTH 

measure,  you  prefer  to  hear  him.  ^f  With  Vance 
was  a  Scotchman,  by  the  name  of  MacDonald, 
(of  course),  well  turned  seventy,  who  had  spent 
thirty  years  as  agent  for  the  Hudson  Bay  Com 
pany  in  the  North. 

These  men  had  met  on  a  literary  basis — they 
both  loved  Robert  Louis  and  read  Little  Jour 
neys.  Each  had  worked  out  in  his  own  mind  a 
clear-cut  scheme  of  philosophy,  a  well-defined 
idea  of  right  and  wrong. 

The  thirty  years  with  the  aborigines  had  not 
deprived  MacDonald  of  his  burr,  which  was  as 
ripe  and  choice  a  specimen  as  you  can  hear  in 
Glasgow.  But  he,  too,  had  grown  silent  by 
nature,  and  had  taken  on  a  good  deal  of  the 
Indian  reserve.  Between  many  lightings  of  his 
pipe  and  long  pauses  MacDonald  told  us  this 
story,  as  we  sat  in  my  room  after  the  lecture.  I 
have  too  much  respect  for  Vance's  old  friend  to 
try  to  imitate  his  dialect.  That  is  his  own.  But 
this  is  the  story.  Said  fche  old  man  after  a  long, 
thoughtful  pause:  No,  Indians  are  not  bad 
people  if  you  treat  them  about  half  right.  They 
may  be  savages,  but  they  are  not  as  savage  as 

white  men.  I  never  had  a  gun  argument  with  an 
30 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

Indian.  He  is  a  child  by  nature,  and  responds  to 
kindness.  It  pays  to  tell  the  truth  to  children, 
and  I  may  be  wrong,  but  I  believe  in  keeping 
faith  with  Indians.  This  was  always  my  policy, 
and  Indians  for  hundreds  of  miles  around  were 
my  friends.  They  even  told  me  their  troubles, 
which  is  an  unusual  thing  for  an  Indian  to  do. 
Tf  The  last  few  winters  have  been  very  severe,  and 
my  Indian  friends  have  suffered  greatly.  Two 
squaws  came  into  the  Post  last  spring,  just  when 
the  leaves  had  begun  to  come  out.  One  had  a 
papoose  on  her  back,  and  with  her  was  an  eight- 
year-old  girl.  I  remembered  the  year  before 
when  she  came,  her  husband  was  with  her,  also 
a  grown-up  boy  and  several  children  beside  jt 
The  squaws  sat  around  all  day  and  said  noth- 
ing.I  guessed  they  wanted  to  tell  me  something. 
At  night  they  disappeared,  but  in  the  morning 
they  came  back  and  told  me  a  tale  of  hardship 
that  really  melted  my  stony  heart,  used  as  I  am 
to  suffering. 

Winter  had  set  in  early  and  the  snows  fell.  This 
woman,  with  the  grown-up  boy  who  had  just 
killed  his  first  deer  and  therefore  was  a  man, 

had  laid  in  quite  a  stock  of  frozen  rabbits,  but 

31 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

a  wandering  band  of  trappers  coming  along 
and  needing  food,  she  had  given  them  all  the 
rabbits.  She  was  sure  that  her  husband  and 
boy  could  get  more. 

But  the  snows  kept  falling,  and  the  winds  blew 
and  drifted  the  snow  so  that  it  was  unsafe  to 
leave  the  teepee.  They  had  eaten  the  dogs,  all 
save  one  old  favorite. 

The  food  was  all  gone,  and  after  waiting  two 
days  the  man  and  boy  started  forth  to  hunt  «^t 
Not  a  track  could  be  found,  for  the  snow  was 
falling  and  drifting  beside. 
They  did  not  return,  and  during  the  night  the 
dog  came  back  alone.  The  mother  left  the  chil 
dren  and  went  forth  following  the  dog  to  find 
her  husband  and  boy.  They  had  been  famished 
for  food  and  were  overcome  by  the  cold  before 
they  had  gone  a  mile.  The  boy  was  dead,  but 
the  man  was  still  alive.  The  woman  carried  and 
dragged  him  home. 

Something  must  be  done — she  placed  the  man 
upon  a  toboggan,  strapped  the  five-year-old 
child  on  top  of  him,  and  carrying  the  papoose 
on  her  back,  and  with  the  eight-year-old  girl 
helping  to  pull  the  toboggan,  she  started  for 
32 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 


her  nearest  neighbor's,  ten  miles  away.  All  day 
she  moved  steadily  forward.  She  arrived  and 
entered  the  teepee  of  her  friend.  One  glance 
told  all — her  neighbor  was  in  even  greater  dis 
tress  than  herself,  for  all  of  her  household  were 
dead  and  the  woman  was  alone,  just  ready  to 
let  the  fire  go  out  and  lie  down  and  sleep  the 
long  sleep.  The  woman  who  had  just  arrived 
killed  the  dog,  and  this  kept  them  alive  for  a 
few  days.  But  the  man  and  the  five-year-old 
child  died,  and  the  women,  the  papoose  and 
the  eight-year-old  girl  were  alone.  The  snow 
ceased  to  fall,  and  they  caught  rabbits  and  ate 
bark  for  food. 

At  last  spring  arrived,  and  when  the  ice  melted 
they  came  to  the  Post  to  tell  me  of  their  loss. 
There  were  no  tears — just  a  plain  recital  of  the 
facts.  They  wanted  nothing,  only  that  I  should 
know.  They  did  not  even  wish  me  to  condole 
with  them,  for  after  telling  me  their  tale,  they 
disappeared  in  the  forest  and  I  sat  there,  dumb. 


33 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

IN  ORDER  TO  HAVE  FRIENDS,  You  MUST 
BE  ABLE  TO  Do  WITHOUT  THEM. 

On   Secret   Societies 

MYSTERY  and  miracle  were  born  in 
Egypt.  It  was  there  that  a  system  was 
evolved,  backed  up  by  the  ruler,  of 
religious  fraud  so  colossal  that  modern  decep 
tion  looks  like  the  bungling  efforts  of  an  amateur. 
The  government,  the  army,  the  taxing  power 
of  the  State  were  sworn  to  protect  gigantic  safes 
in  which  were  hoarded — nothing.  That  is  to  say, 
nothing  but  the  pretense,  upon  which  cupidity 
and  self -hypnotized  credulity  battened  and 
fattened  and  borrowed  money. 
All  institutions  which  thru  mummery,  strange 
acts,  dress  and  ritual,  affect  to  know  and  impart 
the  inmost  secrets  of  creation  and  ultimate  des 
tiny,  had  their  rise  in  Egypt.  In  Egypt  now  are 
only  graves,  tombs,  necropoles  and  silence.  The 
priests  there  need  no  soldiery  to  keep  their 
secrets  safe.  Ammon-Ra,  who  once  ruled  the 
universe,  being  finally  exorcised  by  the  sign  of 
the  cross,  is  now  as  dead  as  the  mummies  who 
once  were  men  and  upheld  his  undisputed  sway. 

34 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

If  The  Egyptians  guarded  their  mysteries  with 
jealous  dread.  We  know  their  secret  now.  It  is 
this :  there  are  no  mysteries. 
That  is  the  only  secret  upon  which  any  secret 
society  holds  a  caveat  ^  Wisdom  cannot  be 
corralled  in  gibberish  and  fettered  in  jargon. 
Knowledge  is  one  thing,  palaver  another.  The 
Greek-letter  societies  of  our  callow  days  still 
survive  in  bird's-eye,  and  next  to  these  come  the 
Elks  who  take  theirs  with  seltzer  and  a  smile, 
as  a  rare  good  joke,  save  that  brotherhood  and 
good  fellowship  are  actually  a  saving  salt. 
Greek-letter  societies  are  the  rudimentary  sur 
vivals  of  what  was  once  an  integral  part  of  every 
college.  Making  dead  languages  optional  was 
the  last  convulsive  kick  of  the  cadaver.  All  this 
mystery  and  mysticism  were  once  official,  and 
later  on  being  discarded  by  the  authorities,  were 
continued  by  the  students  as  a  kind  of  prank. 
If  And  now  a  good  many  colleges  are  placing 
the  seal  of  their  disapproval  on  secret  societies 
among  the  students;  and  the  day  is  near  when 
the  secret  society  will  not  be  tolerated,  either 
directly  or  indirectly,  as  a  part  of  the  education 
of  youth.  All  this  because  tke  sophomoric  mind 

35 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 


is  prone  to  take  its  Greek-letter  mysteries  seri 
ously  and  regard  the  college  curriculum  as  a 
joke  of  the  faculty. 

If  knowledge  were  to  be  gained  by  riding  a  goat, 
any  petty  cross-roads,  with  its  lodge-room  over 
the  grocery,  would  contain  a  Herbert  Spencer; 
the  agrarian  mossbacks  would  have  wisdom  by 
the  scruff  and  detain  knowledge  with  a  tail-told. 
If  There  can  be  no  secrets  in  life  and  morals, 
because  Nature  has  provided  that  every  beauti 
ful  thought  you  know  and  every  precious  senti 
ment  you  feel  shall  shine  out  of  your  face  so  that 
all  who  are  great  enough  may  see,  know,  under 
stand,  appreciate  and  appropriate.  You  keep 
things  only  by  giving  them  away. 

Fix  NOT  YOUR  FAITH  ON  AN  ABSENTEE  GOD 

Canned    Philosophy 

^""  ""THEOLOGY  is  canned  philosophy.  It  is 
supplied  to  the  individual  with  the  best 
JL     success  at  adolescence,  when  glimmer 
ing  intellect  is  in  doubt;  when  an  explanation 
of  physical  phenomena  is   demanded;  when 

nerves  are  vibrating,  and  the  person  being  in  a 
36 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 


transition  period,  craves  protection,  ^f  At  this 
time,  mysticism  coupled  with  the  religious  rite 
of  "confirmation"  meets  with  a  glad  response 
from  the  vascillating,  restless,  feverish,  uncertain 
condition  of  the  novitiate. 
Centuries  of  pious  priestcraft  have  reduced  the 
scheme  to  a  science. 

Formalized  religions  with  their  bells,  responses, 
swinging  censers,  robes,  processions,  genuflec 
tions,  and  strange  sights,  sounds  and  smells, 
are  well  calculated  to  stampede  reason  and 
make  cowards  of  us  all. 

These  things  were  first  worked  out  in  the  ado 
lescence  of  the  race,  long  before  any  definite 
knowledge  of  the  actual  world  was  considered 
either  possible  or  desirable.  Hence  the  warfare 
of  religion  with  science.  Science  sets  free,  formal 
religion  fetters. 

A  reasonable  amount  of  superstition,  to  para 
phrase  our  old  friend  David  Harum,  is  desirable 
at  a  certain  time  in  our  evolution.  The  fairies  fit 
the  child-mind.  They  arouse  imagination,  and 
surely  this  animation  is  better  than  deadness, 
inertia  and  dumb  indifference.  So  superstition 
has  its  use.  Its  danger  lies  in  crystallizing  it  into 

37 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 


a  dogma  and  teaching  it  as  truth  to  grown-ups, 
forcing  it  upon  humanity  with  injunction,  threat 
and  coercion. 

Up  to  the  time  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  religion  and 
government  were  one,  and  even  now,  altho  they 
are  not  legally  wedded,  they  continue  to  have 
"relations."  No  candidate  for  the  presidency 
dares  express  his  honest  belief.  The  church  still 
uses  the  government  to  force  canned  philosophy 
upon  us. 

And  yet  I  believe  that  most  priests  and  preach 
ers  are  honest  men  who  think  they  are  really 
serving  humanity.  When  we  get  our  living  out 
of  a  thing,  self-interest  prompts  us  to  defend 
it,  and  we  believe  that  which  is  to  our  own  inter 
est  to  believe. 

Jesus  was  a  rebel  against  a  formal,  ossified 
religion.  He  had  nothing  to  do  with  organiz 
ing  a  religious  trust.  The  "Christian"  religion 
had  its  rise  in  Egypt,  Assyria  and  Chaldea  «^t 
The  customs  and  costumes  of  Babylon  and 
Nineveh  have  come  down  to  us,  and  are  still  per 
petuated  without  a  single  patentable  improve 
ment.  Jesus  was  dead  and  not  able  to  defend  His 

good  name ;  and  so  His  gentle  philosophy  of  com- 
38 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 


bined  protest  and  affirmation  was  seized  and 
worked  up  into  the  prevailing  pagan  hash  of 
superstition. 

Now  and  then  a  so-called  liberal  arises  and 
announces  that  he  has  discovered  a  formalde 
hyde  that  will  disinfect,  sweeten  and  freshen 
the  mass,  and  he,  too,  is  probably  honest.  His 
future,  his  fortune,  his  good  name  depend  upon 
the  success  of  the  thing  which  he  upholds,  and 
so  he  maintains  it  even  with  his  life.  Martyr 
dom  does  not  prove  a  thing  true,  any  more  than 
does  success.  Vice  has  always  had  a  thousand 
martyrs  to  Virtue's  one.  The  heroism  and  per 
sistency  shown  by  criminals  in  following  their 
bent  is  admirable,  were  it  not  appalling. 
Criminals  have  been  trained  by  society,  unknow 
ingly,  of  course,  to  do  this  one  thing,  and  so  they 
cleave  and  cling  to  it,  and  "die  in  the  harness. " 
It  is  so  with  theology.  The  men  trained  to  it  can 
do  nothing  else,  and  so  they  clutch  it  and  cling 
to  it,  declaring  it  the  hope  of  the  world  and 
prophesy  terrible  things  that  will  happen  to 
a  godless  government.  And  the  people  to  whom 
the  canned  philosophy  has  been  fed,  are  used  to 
it,  and  are  unable  to  digest  anything  else.  Our 

39 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 


minds  like  our  bodies  crave  the  accustomed  jfc 
So  long  as  government  and  church  were  one, 
no  thinker  was  safe.  Treason  and  blasphemy 
were  net  and  spear,  always  in  waiting  for  the 
lives  of  those  who  failed  to  conform  &  It  was 
Jefferson  who  first  fixed  in  a  constitution  the 
definition  that  treason  should  not  consist  in 
anything  you  might  say  or  write.  Treason  now 
consists  in  armed  war  upon  your  country,  or 
in  giving  aid  and  succor  to  its  armed  enemies  ^t 
Blasphemy  now  consists  in  speaking  disrespect 
fully  of  another  man's  conception  of  the  Deity. 
And  this  in  America  you  have  a  perfect  legal 
right  to  do. 

And  so  it  was  Jefferson  and  Ingersoll  who  killed 
the  ptomaines  in  theology — or  at  least  filed  their 
teeth.  And  now  behold  theology  as  a  sawdust 
breakfast  food,  made  palatable  to  the  unthink 
ing — educated  and  uneducated — thru  a  dash 
of  morality  and  a  sprinkling  of  sweet  ethics  ^t 
Formal  religion  was  organized  for  slaves;  it 
offered  them  consolation  which  earth  did  not 
provide.  Work  for  them  offered  no  solace.  To-day 
it  is  different:  sensible  people  realize  that  the 

man  who  does  not  enjoy  his  work  will  never 
40 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 


enjoy  anything.  Work  is  our  refuge  and  defense; 
and  art  is  the  expression  of  man's  joy  in  his 
work  jt  jfc 

If  you  have  evolved  to  a  point  where  you  are 
able  to  make  your  work  an  art,  you  reach  the 
sense  of  sublimity,  or  a  realizing  kinship  with 
the  Divine. 

THERE  Is  No  DEVIL  BUT  FEAR! 

Theology    and    Medicine 

MARTIN  LUTHER  the  German, 
John  Calvin  the  Frenchman,  and 
John  Knox  the  Scotchman  lived  at 
the  same  time.  They  constitute  a  trinity  of 
strong  men  who  profoundly  influenced  their 
times ;  and  the  epoch  they  made  was  so  impor 
tant  that  we  refer  to  it  as  "The  Reformation. " 
They  form  the  undertow  of  that  great  tidal 
wave  of  reason,  the  Italian  Renaissance.  And  as 
the  chief  business  of  the  Hahnemariian  School 
of  Medicine  was  to  dilute  the  dose  of  the 
Allopaths,  and  the  Christian  Scientists  con 
firmed  the  Homeopaths  in  a  belief  in  the 
beauties  of  the  blank  tablet,  so  did  Luther, 

41 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

Calvin  and  Knox  neutralize  the  arrogance  of 
Rome,  and  dilute  the  dose  of  despotism.  Ernest 
Renan  thought  that  Martin  Luther  put  progress 
back  five  hundred  years,  "by  effecting  a  com 
promise  with  the  Catholic  Church,  supplying 
the  people  something  just  as  good,  at  less  cost. " 
Tf  Yet  the  great  Renan  must  have  known  that 
fanaticism  is  a  disease  of  the  mind,  just  as 
alcoholism  is  a  disease  of  the  body,  and  the 
rational  cure  for  both  is  the  diminishing  dose. 
That  is,  you  are  weaned  from  one  thing  by  the 
substitution  of  something  less  harmful. 
The  cure  by  violence  and  revulsion,  sometimes 
works,  but  it  is  unreliable  and  often  unsafe. 
Tf  Mankind  can  be  released  from  the  power  of 
weakness  only  by  slow  degrees. 
Christian  Science  has  eliminated  the  doctor, 
reducing  the  rank  of  priest  to  that  of  reader, 
and  thrown  away  the  bell,  candle,  and  curse, 
but  it  still  finds  it  expedient,  if  not  absolutely 
necessary,  to  have  its  "Book"  and  "Church." 
T  And  behold  one  great  Life  Insurance  Com 
pany  has  instructed  its  agents  by  circular  thus : 
"Christian  Scientists  as  a  class  are  extra  good 

risks  and  should  be  solicited."  TfThen  comes 
42 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 


Dr.  Hughson  Harding,  the  celebrated  neurolo 
gist  of  London,  and  says,  "Christian  Science 
by  lessening  nerve-tension,  and  increasing  the 
self-reliance  of  the  patient,  brings  about  a 
normal  flow  of  the  secretions,  and  thus  doubt 
less  increases  the  average  length  of  human  life 
in  a  very  perceptible  degree. " 
Kenan's  idea  that  humanity  could  have  been 
jumped  from  the  hypnotic  dazzle  of  Rome  into 
the  clean,  calm  sunlight  of  reason  at  a  bound, 
if  Luther  had  not  interposed  "with  something 
just  as  good, "  is  not  reasonable.  Mankind  must 
get  used  to  the  light  by  degrees. 
And  if  Protestantism  is  "a  compromise  with 
truth,"  as  Diderot  and  so  many  others  have 
averred,  let  us  just  remember  that  life  itself  is 
a  compromise,  and  that  progress  is  only  possi 
ble  thru  courteously  giving  the  rights  of  the  road 
and  making  way  for  vehicles,  even  though  you 
do  not  exactly  love  the  occupants  nor  admire 
their  millinery. 

NATURE  intended  that  each  animal  should 
live  to  an  age  approximating  five  times  the 
number  of  years  which  it  takes  to  reach  its 

43 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 


bodily  maturity.  Man  reaches  his  height  and 
maximum  strength  at  twenty,  and  should  there 
fore  live  to  be  a  hundred. 

The  brain,  being  the  last  organ  developed,  and 
growing  until  man  is  past  seventy,  should  sit 
secure  and  watch  every  organ  decline.  As  it  is; 
the  brain,  with  over  one-half  of  the  individuals 
who  live  to  be  seventy,  loses  its  power  before 
the  hands  and  feet,  and  death  reaps  something 
less  than  a  man — all  thru  too  much  exercise  for 
the  brain,  or  not  enough. 

Glancing  once  more  at  Dr.  Harding's  remark, 
it  is  very  evident  that  if  the  sum  of  human  hap 
piness  can  be  increased,  life  will  be  much 
extended,  and  the  danger  of  dying  at  the  top 
obviated  j&  ^ 

Of  all  the  mental  and  physical  polluters  of  life, 
nothing  exercises  such  a  poisonous  effect  as  fear. 
lj  Fear  paralyzes  the  will,  and  either  stagnates 
the  secretions  or  turns  them  loose  in  a  torrent. 
If  Jealousy,  cruelty,  hate,  revenge,  are  all  forms 
of  fear  &  <£ 

Abolish  fear,  and  every  man  and  woman  is  an 
orator  and  an  artist.  The  criminal  and  the 
untruthful  person  are  obsessed  by  fear  until 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 


the  genial  current  of  their  life  is  turned  awry. 
A  man,  like  a  horse,  is  safe  until  he  gets  in  the 
fell  clutch  of  fear. 

When  the  Shah  of  Persia  was  asked  the  average 
length  of  human  life  in  his  country,  he  replied, 
"Some  die  old,  some  die  young — only  God  can 
tell  how  long  anybody  will  live. " 
Luther  died  at  sixty-three,  Calvin  at  fifty-three 
and  John  Knox  at  fifty-seven  <£>  Luther  and 
Knox  were  in  prison,  and  Calvin  only  escaped 
by  flight.  All  were  under  sentence  of  death;  all 
lived  under  the  ban  of  fear.  And  all  preached  a 
religion  of  fear.  All  were  literally  scared  to  death 
and  all  have  literally  scared  to  death  thousands 
upon  thousands  of  other  people. 
Now  if  you  were  asked  what  factor  in  human 
life  had  contributed  most  to  fear,  would  you 
not  be  compelled  in  truth  to  say,  theology  ? 
Theology,  by  diverting  the  attention  of  men 
from  this  life  to  another,  and  by  endeavoring  to 
coerce  all  men  into  one  religion,  constantly 
preaching  that  this  world  is  full  of  misery, 
but  the  next  world  would  be  beautiful — or  not 
— as  the  case  may  be,  has  forced  on  men  the 
thought  of  fear  where  otherwise  there  might 

45 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

have  been  the  happy  abandon  of  nature,  f  Next 
to  theology  in  point  of  harm,  is  medicine, 
which  is  the  study  of  the  abnormal,  and  the 
constantly  iterated  thought  that  the  "family 
physician"  was  a  necessary  adjunct  to  life 
itself;  which  thought  has  bred  in  mankind  the 
fallacy  of  looking  to  the  doctor  for  relief  from 
pain,  instead  of  to  ourselves.  Should  we  not 
understand  the  Laws  of  Life  sufficiently,  so  to 
be  as  well  and  as  happy  as  birds  and  squirrels  ? 
The  third  great  engine  of  human  misery  has 
been  the  law.  Seventy  per  cent  of  the  members 
of  all  our  lawmaking  bodies  are  lawyers.  Very 
naturally  lawyers  in  making  laws  favor  laws 
that  make  lawyers  a  necessity.  If  this  were  not 
so,  lawyers  would  not  be  human. 
Until  very  recent  times,  and  in  degree  I  am  told 
it  is  so  yet,  laws  are  for  the  subjection  of  the 
many  and  the  upholding  of  the  privileges  of  the 
few.  The  few  employ  a  vast  lobby,  while  all  the 
many  can  do  is  to  obey,  or  be  ground  into  the 
mire.  All  the  justice  the  plain  people  have,  they 
have  had  to  fight  for,  and  what  we  get  is  a  sop 
to  keep  us  quiet.  The  law,  for  most  people,  is  a 

great  mysterious  malevolent  engine,  of  wrath. 
46 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 


A  legal  summons  will  yet  blanch  the  cheek  of 
most  honest  men,  and  an  officer  at  the  door 
sends  consternation  into  the  family.  The  District 
Attorney  prosecutes  us — we  must  defend  our 
selves.  "And  if  you  have  no  money  to  hire  a 
lawyer,  you  are  adjudged  guilty  and  for  you 
justice  is  a  by- word,"  says  Luther  Laflin  Mills, 
the  eminent  lawyer. 

And  here  is  the  argument:  The  fear  of  death, 
as  taught  by  the  clergy,  the  fear  of  disease,  as 
fostered  by  the  doctors,  and  the  fear  of  the  law, 
as  disseminated  by  lawyers,  have  created  a  fog 
of  fear  that  has  permeated  us  like  a  miasma, 
and  cut  human  life  short  one-third,  causing 
the  brain  to  reel  and  rock  at  a  time  when  it 
should  be  the  serene  and  steadfast  pilot  of 
our  lives. 

"What  then,"  you  ask,  "Shall  we  go  back  to 
savagery?" 

And  my  answer  is,  No,  we  must,  and  will,  and 
are,  going  on,  on  to  Enlightenment. 


47 


HEALTH      AND    WEALTH 


THOSE  WHO  LIVE  BY  THE  HAMMER  SHALL 
DIE  BY  THE  HAMMER 

The  Gentle  Art  of  Knocking 

SATAN  was  once  a  man.  Later  he  evolved 
into  a  God  and  dwelt  in  Paradise.  There 
must  have  been  a  time  when  he  was 
worthy  of  trust   and  affection,  otherwise  the 
Almighty  would  never  have  allowed  him   to 
enter  Heaven. 

But  Satan  was  of  a  peculiar  disposition.  He  had 
the  "artistic  temperament,"  which  is  to  say,  he 
was  moody,  irritable,  fault-finding,  and  a  good 
deal  of  the  time  idle.  Instead  of  trying  to  remedy 
the  weak  points  of  Paradise,  he  merely  pointed 
them  out  and  harangued  about  them  to  all  who 
would  listen. 

And  Satan  still  finds  mischief  for  idle  hands  to 
do.  It  was  the  same  then — Satan  would  neither 
tune  harps,  launder  the  robes,  nor  polish  the 
pavement  which  was  made  of  gold  and  precious 
stones  <£•  & 

It  took  a  lot  of  labor  and  a  deal  of  skill  to  set 
these  paving  stones,  but  while  the  workers  were 
at  it,  Satan  would  sit  on  the  curb  and  make  sport 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

of  them.  When  the  Almighty  came  around  to 
see  how  things  were  getting  along,  Satan  would 
whisper  unkind  things  about  Him  after  He  had 
passed,  and  kick  about  how  severe  He  was  in 
discipline  «jt  <£* 

The  Almighty  warned  Satan  from  time  to  time 
to  get  busy,  but  his  answer  was,  "I  am!" 
"Sure  enough,"  replied  the  Almighty,  "but  at 
the  wrong  thing. " 

They  tried  to  get  Satan  to  lead  the  Choral  So 
ciety  and  break  in  the  new  arrivals,  some  of 
whom  sang  slightly  off-key. 
"I  teach  those  jays?  Why  they  have  no  voice 
— they  only  have  a  disease.  You  should  never 
have  let  them  in — what  this  place  needs  is  a 
new  gatekeeper  who  has  nerve  with  him,  and 
can  direct  the  wrong  applicant  where  to  go! 
No,  I  '11  not  lead  your  orchestra;  and  anyway, 
I  am  drilling  a  little  class  of  my  own  and  have 
no  time:  I  am  organizing  an  Anvil  Chorus." 
It  was  no  use — Satan  would  not  do  what  he  was 
told.  He  always  knew  a  better  way,  and  he 
sneered  at  every  plan  for  a  heavenly  better 
ment  that  he  did  not  himself  suggest.  And  he 
suggested  precious  few,  and  these  he  could  not 

49 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 


carry  out.  ^f  There  was  only  one  thing  that 
interested  him  and  that  was  the  Anvil  Chorus. 
When  the  saints  sang  Hallelujahs,  Satan  would 
start  up  his  favorite  instrument  and  pound.  He 
was  n't  industrious  in  anything  but  knocking. 
If  Finally  he  had  gotten  so  many  people  believing 
that  the  anvil  was  really  sweeter  than  the  harp, 
that  the  Almighty  lost  patience. 
And  when  it  was  discovered  that  Satan  had 
started  a  factory  to  make  hammer-handles,  the 
Almighty  decided  to  fire  him  bodily. 
So  the  word  was  passed  along,  and  the  saints 
quietly  tucked  their  robes  in  their  belts  and 
made  a  rush  for  Mister  Satan  and  his  band  of 
Knockers  &  & 

It  was  soon  over.  Satan  was  shot  out  of  Heaven 
like  a  rubber  ball  from  a  wooden  cannon. 
Milton  says  he  fell  for  two  weeks. 
When  he  finally  reached  earth  he  called  him 
self  the  D'Evil,  and  boasted  of  being  a  prince 
— a  dispossessed  prince. 

He  would  never  have  been  so  proud  if  the  theo 
logians  had  not  paid  him  so  much  attention  ^ 
The  preachers,  while  publicly  warning  their 

flocks  to  shun  him,  were  secretly  hobnobbing 
50 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

with  him  a  good  deal  of  the  time. ^f  Then  the  play 
wrights  and  poets  admired  him  and  secretly 
affected  him,  and  wove  him  into  literature,  and 
all  this  tended  to  turn  his  head. 
But  now  the  preachers,  for  the   most  part, 
have  denied  him,  and  literature  has  cut  his 
acquaintance.  He  is  no  longer  popular.  Where 
he  is  and  what  he  does  is  nothing  to  us. 
The  Devil  is  a  dead  one. 
MORAL:  An  idle  god  evolves  into  a  devil. 

IF  ANYTHING  Is  SACRED,  THE  HUMAN  BODY 
Is  SACRED.  AND  IN  MAN  OR  WOMAN,  A  CLEAN, 
STRONG,  FIRM-FIBRED  BODY  Is  MORE  BEAUTI 
FUL  THAN  THE  MOST  FASCINATING  FACE. 

In    Re    Muldoon 

PROFESSOR  WILLIAM  MULDOON 
—Muldoon  the  Solid  Man!  Muldoon 
the  champion  wrestler  of  the  world! 
I  have  taken  a  few  falls  out  of  him  in  days 
agone — in  a  literary  way — and  what  I  will  now 
say,  I  will  say. 

Muldoon  has  been  pronounced  by  competent 
judges  a  perfect  physical  specimen  of  manhood. 

51 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

Not  one  man  in  a  million  can  compare  with  him; 
and  age,  intelligence  and  physique  considered, 
he  probably  is  without  a  rival  on  earth. 
He  is  exactly  five  feet  ten,  and  weighs  stripped, 
one  hundred  and  eighty.  He  gives  you  a  glimpse 
of  Greece  in  the  time  of  Pericles. 
He  has  more  dignity,  more  repose,  more  poise, 
than   any  man  has   expressed   since  Phidias 
modeled  and  Praxiteles  carved. 
He  talks  but  little:  he  listens  until  the  other 
man  has  talked  himself  out — his  is  a  waiting 
game  jt  & 

Knowing  something  of  the  traditions  of  the 
squared  circle,  you  expect  he  will  speak  in  a 
husky  gutteral,  and  say,  "I  trun  him  down — 
see!" 

But  this  man  surprises  you  with  a  light,  musi 
cal,  exquisitely  modulated  voice  that  comes 
from  resonant  air  chambers,  and  a  throat  with 
out  a  flaw. 

It  is  a  voice  whose  whispered  word  can  fill  a 
room;  a  voice  that  can  ring  out  a  calvary  com 
mand  that  can  be  heard  for  half  a  mile. 
If  needs  be,  it  is  a  voice  that  could  talk  all  day 
and  never  grow  weak  nor  hoarse. 
52 


HEALTH     ANDWEALTH 

Muldoon  has  no  suggestion  of  a  foreign  accent, 
and  I  will  admit  that  a  man  by  the  name  of  Mul 
doon  who  has  no  brogue  is  a  bit  disappointing. 
Every  action  of  the  man  implies  reserve ;  every 
thing  he  does  is  well  within  his  limit. 
When  he  sits  he  does  not  cross  his  legs,  play  the 
devil's  tattoo  with  his  hands,  twirl  his  mus 
tache,  stroke  his  hair,  scratch  his  nose,  adjust 
his  necktie,  nor  examine  his  finger-nails.  He 
completes  his  toilet  in  his  room. 
Such  control  of  nerves,  such  perfect  self-pos 
session,  such  absolute  grace — clothed  or  stripped 
— gives  hope  that  the  spirit  of  Athens  may  yet 
to  us  return. 

"I  think,"  said  Professor  Muldoon  to  me,  "I 
think  my  success — such  as  it  is — as  a  trainer, 
has  hinged  on  the  fact  that  I  have  never  worked 
for  great  muscular  strength,  simply  for  balance, 
or  what  you  call  mastery  or  control.  Few  men 
possess  their  bodies,  rather  the  body  bullies  the 
mind  all  day  long. " 

Please  note  the  remark,  and  tell  me  if  the  col 
leges  have  n't  something  to  learn  from  Muldoon. 
In  fact,  why  does  n't  Harvard  hire  him  ? 
And  the  answer  is,  the  services  of  Muldoon  are 

53 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

not  for  sale,  save  as  you  go  to  him  and  become 
a  part  of  his  system. 

MTJLDOON  is  rich,  and  he  works  now 
simply  because  he  is  wise  and  knows 
that  no  man  can  ever  afford  to  be  idle — that 
retiring  on  your  laurels  is  death — unless  you 
are  working  for  new  laurels.  So  Muldoon  works 
at  the  task  he  likes,  and  in  the  way  that  pleases 
him  ^  jfc 

When  a  youth  he  began  to  train  as  a  wrestler; 
he  evolved  an  Idea,  and  this  Idea  is  that  the 
mind  of  a  man  should  rule  his  body,  that  the 
body  should  obey  the  mind. 
And  after  nearly  fifty  years  of  work  in  physical 
training,  there  is  only  one  word  which  for  him 
looms  large,  and  that  is  the  word  OBEY. 
Muldoon  made  his  body  obey,  and  he  became 
perfectly  ambidextrous  &  Wrestling  requires 
more  science  than  boxing,  and  so  he  specialized 
on  the  mat  instead  of  the  gloves. 
Then  he  took  to  training  prize-fighters. 
Members  of  the  Society  for  Ethical  Culture  will 
recall  that  Muldoon  trained  Sullivan  for  his 
match  with  Kilrain,  and  acted  as  Sullivan's 

54 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

second  at  the  ringside.  John  gave  the  sedative 
to  every  man  he  met  as  long  as  he  was  trained 
by  Muldoon. 

For  a  time  the  Solid  Man  succeeded  in  making 
John  L.  obey,  but  finally  John  L.  decided  that 
in  all  the  bright  lexicon  of  words  there  is  no  such 
word  as  obedience.  Then  it  was  that  John  fell 
an  easy  prey  to  Corbett,  who  weighed  thirty 
pounds  less,  but  had  his  body  under  control, 
so  that  it  was  the  ready  and  willing  servant  of 
his  mind. 

A  little  later,  Muldoon  traveled  with  Maurice 
Barrymore  and  played  the  part  of  Charles  the 
Wrestler  in  "As  You  Like  It,"  always  giving  a 
genuine  exhibition  for  the  ladies  before  Charles 
graciously  allowed  Orlando  to  win. 
Next  he  posed  in  living  pictures,  and  gave  lec 
tures  on  health  in  various  colleges.  Ten  years 
ago  he  established  his  present  "Olympia," 
five  miles  back  in  the  hills  from  White  Plains, 
New  York. 

Prize-fighters,  wrestlers  and  athletes  are  no 
longer  the  object  of  Muldoon's  solicitude;  his 
raw  stock  are  business  men,  artists,  lawyers, 
preachers  and  doctors  who  have  gone  the  pace. 

55 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

If  Muldoon  has  a  system,  a  system  never  tried 
by  any  one  else,  and  that  never  will  be  tried 
by  any  one  else,  because  no  other  living  man 
dare  attempt  it,  knowing  perfectly  well  it  would 
fail  e£&  <£• 

And  if  you  know  a  thing  is  going  to  fail,  it  does. 
Muldoon's  system  is  not  founded  on  love,  kind 
ness  and  good  cheer.  These  are  all  secondary, 
and  while  they  do  exist  in  his  mind,  they  are  kept 
carefully  out  of  sight.  The  plan  will  die  with 
him  Jt>  <£ 

THE  key-note  of  the  whole  thing  is  obedi 
ence.  It  is  necessary  to  subjugate  the  will 
of  the  patient.  Paradoxically,  you  have  to  kill  a 
man's  will  in  order  to  build  it  up. 
The  whip-method  of  breaking  horses  is  along 
the  same  line.  The  trainer  goes  into  the  box  stall 
with  a  whip  and  terrorizes  the  animal  until  he 
absolutely  submits,  and  yet  the  horse  is  never 
struck  ^  *£ 

Muldoon  is  cruel  only  as  Nature  is  cruel — you 
obey  Nature,  co-operate  with  her  and  you  find 
that  she  is  kind.  Obedience  to  Nature  brings 
you  everything  you  need,  mental,  spiritual, 
56 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

physical.  Obey  Muldoon  and  cease  butting-in 
with  your  stub-end  of  a  will  and  you  succeed. 
The  only  way  you  can  get  the  start  of  Muldoon 
is  to  obey  him.  To  obey  requires  will  power  ^t 
The  average  man's  body  has  never  learned  to 
obey.  It  is  slothful,  lazy,  slipshod,  domineering, 
indifferent,  disrespectful  to  his  mind. 
A  man  may  have  a  creative  intellect,  and  yet 
his  body  be  a  very  wretch  of  a  body,  that  gorges 
itself  with  bad  food,  swills  strange  drinks, 
refuses  to  go  to  bed  at  night,  and  declines  to 
get  up  in  the  morning,  wooing  persistently  the 
means  of  debility  and  disease. 
A  great  poet  may  be  swag-bellied,  blear-eyed 
and  have  title  to  a  slouching,  willful,  erratic, 
untrained  digestive  tract.  The  man  has  never 
forced  his  body  to  acquire  good  habits  thru  the 
law  of  obedience,  and  after  years  of  bodily  back- 
talk,  things  reach  a  point  where  this  hoodlum  of 
a  physical  cosmos  is  going  down  and  dragging 
the  mind  with  it. 

As  long  as  the  man  can  do  business,  he  submits 
to  being  bullied  by  his  body.  All  sorts  of  vicious 
habits  grow  up  unrebuked.  The  body  demands 
cigars,  cigarettes,  stimulants,  strange  dishes, 

57 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

novel  sights,  smells,  sounds  and  sensations,  and 
the  mind  of  the  man  is  powerless,  being  dragged 
hither  and  yon  by  this  willful  restless  beast, 
which  often  grows  more  gross  and  inefficient 
and  full  of  twitchings,  twists  and  pain  as  the 
mind  evolves,  develops  and  refines.  Thought 
goes  on,  and  the  man  may  do  big  work,  but 
some  day  the  hand  that  reaches  for  the  salt 
picks  up  the  pepper,  and  the  tongue  that  would 
say  "pepper,"  says  "salt." 
The  nerve-specialist  is  here  called  in,  scowls, 
coughs,  takes  an  owl-like  look,  and  explains  that 
it  is  incipient  locomotor  ataxia,  with  aphasia 
as  a  side  line,  all  caused  through  poisoning  of 
the  system  by  uric  acid — say,  call  it  Bright's 
Disease  and  Nerv.  Pros. 

If  the  patient  knows  enough,  as  he  probably 
does  not,  he  goes  to  Muldoon  and  is  born  again. 
But  probably  he  takes  to  dope  and  drugs  and 
dies  inside  of  two  years.  Or  he  may  haunt  Hot 
Springs  and  the  sanitariums,  and  by  baths  and 
massage  stand  the  reaper  off  for  five  years. 
Tuberculosis  is  a  disease  of  the  will  ^  If  a 
stronger  will  can  be  found  that  will  take  charge 

of  the  other  man's  body  at  the  critical  time,  and 
58 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

force  right  breathing,  eating  and  exercise  on  the 
patient,  he  will  get  well.  Left  to  himself  he  suc 
cumbs  to  inertia  or  a  lazy  habit  of  body,  the  air 
cells  of  the  lungs  collapse  and  the  man  dies  JL 
Muldoon  says  that  all  diseases  are  the  result  of 
lack  of  will.  He  simply  takes  charge  of  the  man's 
body.  His  one  request  is  that  the  man  abdicate 
his  own  will  and  obey.  So  difficult  is  obedience 
to  the  average  so-called  successful  man,  that 
one  out  of  three  of  the  patients  who  go  to  Mul 
doon  leave  him  inside  of  two  days,  forfeiting 
their  first  weekly  payment  of  sixty  dollars. 
If  Muldoon  has  an  opportunity  of  seeing  the 
discouraged  and  disgruntled  man  before  he 
goes,  he  presents  the  card  of  a  local  undertaker 
at  White  Plains,  wishes  him  good  luck  in  purga 
tory  and  sends  personal  regards  to  Mephisto. 
Those  who  stick  it  out  for  three  days  under 
Muldoon's  treatment,  remain  from  three  to 
six  weeks,  and  get  well.  There  may  be  excep 
tions,  but  this  is  the  general  rule. 

MULDOON'S  treatment  goes  under  the 
general  term  of  "dope," and  the  formula 
is  about  as  follows : 

59 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

You  arrive  at  the  long,  plain,  Quaker-gray 
shingled  house  on  the  hill,  after  a  pleasant 
drive  of  an  hour  from  the  station  at  White 
Plains  e£&  e^ 

Muldoon  receives  you  with  the  quiet  dignity 
of  a  Chesterfield.  You  are  impressed  by  the 
man,  only  you  wish  he  would  thaw  out  and 
sympathize  with  you.  Later  you  ascertain  that 
Muldoon  does  not  effuse  over  anybody,  even 
over  a  member  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States. 

In  five  minutes  Muldoon's  quick  eyes  have 
looked  you  over  and  he  has*  decided  that  you 
have  enough  vitality  to  build  on — parties  in 
wheeled  chairs  or  those  requiring  surgical 
treatment  never  find  Muldoon  at  home. 
So  you  are  accepted.  You  are  gently  told  that 
you  cannot  have  any  visitors,  either  doctors  or 
laymen,  and  that  books,  medicine  and  stimu 
lants  are  tabu.  The  suggestion  seems  a  trifle 
curt,  but  you  submit,  and  then  and  there  bid 
your  friends  good-bye. 

You  watch  their  carriage  as  it  slowly  circles 
down  the  hill,  and  is  lost  amid  the  towering 

elms  ^  ^ 
60 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 


The  first  move  is  to  interview  the  secretary — 
he  being  the  only  person  in  sight. 
You  pay  the  genial  young  man  your  first  week's 
board  of  sixty  dollars:  this  advance  payment 
being  a  part  of  the  dope,  a  necessary  psycholog 
ical  item  in  the  work  of  regeneration. 
You  are  given  a  heavy  woolen  sweater,  a  gray 
pair  of  gymnasium  trousers  and  a  pair  of  felt 
slippers.  Then  you  are  shown  to  your  room  and 
told  to  put  on  this  suit  and  go  below  where  the 
Professor  will  see  you. 

Your  room  is  furnished  with  a  little  table,  one 
chair,  and  a  small  iron  bed.  All  toilet  requisites 
are  noticeable  by  their  absence.  The  room  looks 
like  a  cell,  save  that  there  are  two  open  doors, 
one  opening  right  out-of-doors  and  the  other 
leading  to  the  hall  that  runs  the  length  of  the 
building.  These  rooms,  you  learn,  are  known  as 
"kennels."  You  note  that  there  are  no  locks  nor 
bolts  on  the  doors,  and  if  you  are  a  cosmic,  it 
comes  to  you  that  the  insignificant  matter  of 
ventilation  evidently  is  not  in  the  hands  of  the 
occupant  ^fc  ^ 

You  sit  down  on  the  bed  and  think  about  noth 
ing  in  particular,  rather  enjoying  the  view  out 

61 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

of  the  open  door,  listening  to  the  drowsy  hum 
of  bees,  and  the  summer  wind  in  the  locusts  & 
You  have  about  concluded  to  lie  down  on  the 
little  bed  and  take  a  nap,  when  an  athletic  youth 
in  a  sweater  puts  his  head  in  the  door  and  says, 
"The  Professor  is  waiting  for  you."  And  then 
adds  half  confidentially,  "It's  all  right  if  you 
mind  him,  but  you  ought  to  have  changed  your 
clothes  at  once  and  not  lingered  here. " 
You  murmur  excuses  and  get  into  the  convict's 
clothes  in  less  time  than  you  usually  take  to 
dress.  You  look  about  for  a  mirror  to  ascertain 
how  frightful  you  appear.  No  mirror  is  to  be 
seen  jfc  ^ 

You  go  down  stairs  and  enter  the  gymnasium. 
The  Professor  is  there  in  gym  dress,  putting  a 
class  of  a  dozen  thru  a  course  of  callisthenics. 
1f  Then  occurs  exactly  what  occurred  when 
Chauncey  M.  Depew  entered  the  same  room 
under  like  conditions  six  weeks  before. 
The  senator  was  yellow;  there  were  dark  baggy 
lines  under  his  eyes,  but  the  gymnasium  dress 
into  which  he  had  packed  his  senatorial  person 
offered  an  excuse  for  art.  He  approached  the 

Professor  and  proffered  a  small  pliocene  pleas- 
62 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 


antry.  The  Professor  replied,  "Sir,  sit  down," 

in  a  low,  clear,  distinct  tone. 

Depew's  punning  proclivity  vanished.  He  had 

really  expected  that  the  Professor  would  slap 

his  thigh  and  roar,  as  people  in  civilization  were 

wont  when  the  nectarine  spoke,  or  at  least  smile 

and  ask  after  things  down  in  Washington.  And 

all  the  Professor  said  was,  "Sir,  sit  down,"  and 

went  right  along  with  his  callisthenics. 

"Right  foot — left  foot — right  arm — left — up, 

back,  down,  over,  out — neck  to  the  left ! " 

The  Senator  moved  over  to  the  window,  looked 

out,  strolled  down  to  the  end  of  the  gym.  The 

class  was  working  down  that  way,  too. 

"Sir,  sit  down!"  suddenly  calls  the  voice  of  the 

Professor  jfc  jfc 

The  Senator  is  sure  the  voice  is  not  for  him,  no 

one  had  ever  spoken  to  him  like  that.  He  still 

strolls  jfc  jfc 

Now  comes  the  third  order  with  the  Professor 

walking  toward  him,  "Mr.  Depew,  sit  down!" 

pointing  to  a  seat  along  the  wall. 

The  Senator  is  startled,  then  he  half  laughs  as 

it  comes  to  him  that  it  is  a  joke,  and  he  replies, 

"Oh,  I  prefer  to  stand,  thank  you." 

63 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

The  fourth  time  the  order  rings  out  and 
Depew  realizes  that  it  is  no  joke.  He  jumps, 
shivers  and  stammers,  "Well,  I  would  have 
you  know  that  I  am  a  gentleman,  and  am 
used  to  associating  with  gentlemen  ^t  You 
evidently  do  not  know  me — I  am  Senator 
Depew." 

"I  know,"  says  Muldoon  with  exasperating 
coolness,  "I  know  you,  but  evidently  you  do 
not  know  me.  You  seemingly  have  come  here 
to  give  an  after-dinner  speech,  to  present  a  lec 
ture  on  Delsarte,  or  to  favor  me  with  lessons  in 
etiquette— SIT  DO WN !" 
This  time  the  order  comes  like  a  knock-down 
blow,  and  Depew  sinks  upon  the  seat  and  sits 
there  dazed  like  a  boy  awaiting  punishment  for 
stealing  jam  from  a  high  shelf. 
The  Professor  calmly  continues  his  work  with 
the  class  for  five  minutes,  and  then  orders 
Depew  upon  the  floor  and  motions  him  his 
place  in  the  line. 
"Hands  straight  up!" 
Depew  puts  his  out  in  front. 
"Hands  straight  up!"  rings  out  the  order  for 
the  second  time.  Depew  makes  haste  to  comply. 
64 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 


work  is  really  quite  moderate,  but  the 
newcomer  thinks  it  is  severe,  and  is  greatly 
relieved  when  in  half  an  hour  the  order  is 
given,  "To  the  shower-bath!" 
Arriving  there,  all  disrobe  save  the  Senator, 
but  when  the  stern  order  is  given  to  "  Get  into 
the  game,"  he  begins  to  struggle  with  his 
sweater  and  is  soon  in  the  gentle  guise  of 
Correggio's  cherubim. 

Men  in  gym  suits  are  all  on  an  equality.  Car- 
lyle  said,  "A  naked  House  of  Lords  would 
inspire  no  awe,"  but  all  he  meant  was  that  a 
Senator  under  a  shower-bath  would  command 
no  senatorial  courtesy. 

A  rough  towel  is  tossed  to  each  man  and 
Depew  is  simply  told  to  "  Get  busy  !  " 
And  he  does,  for  it  has  dawned  upon  him  that 
safety  lies  either  in  flight  or  obedience. 
Supper  comes  and  after  that  there  is  a  long 
stroll  across  the  meadow,  over  the  hills  and 
back  thru  the  woods,  along  the  country  road. 
If  The  western  sky  is  colored  deep  with  red 
where  the  sun  has  gone  down.  Over  across  the 
moor,  a  half  mile  away,  the  white  mist  is  gather 
ing.  The  summer  night  closes  down,  and  the 

65 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

distant  woods  turn  to  purple  patches.  f  The 
strolling  party  reach  the  long,  low  house  on 
the  hill-top,  just  as  the  clock  in  the  kitchen  is 
striking  nine. 

The  Senator  is  told  he  can  go  to  bed.  No  order 
is  required.  He  finds  his  room,  undresses  with 
out  a  light,  puts  on  a  woolen  night-robe  that  he 
finds  on  the  bedpost  and  tumbles  into  bed,  sub 
dued,  tired  and  a  bit  resentful. 
He  has  decided  to  go  home  on  the  morrow — the 
system  is  too  severe.  But  before  he  can  really 
formulate  his  plans  he  is  asleep,  lulled  by  the 
lowing  of  distant  cattle. 

SIX  o'clock! "It  is  the  mild  voice  of  the 
athletic  attendant. 

At  six-ten  the  attendant  once  more  calls,  this 
time  in  a  chest-tone. 

At  six-fifteen,  he  returns  with  a  bucket  of  water, 
that  he  is  told  to  douse  on  the  victim  of  Mrs. 
Morpheus  without  ruth.  It  is  not  necessary,  the 
victim  is  cosmic,  and  struggles  out  on  the  floor, 
making  a  dive  for  duds. 

"Sleep  is  a  privilege,"  says  Muldoon,  "and 
when  this  truth  is  once  fixed  in  a  man's  mind, 

66 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

he  gets  busy  pounding  his  ear  the  instant  he 

gets  a  chance. " 

Insomnia  never  comes  to  a  man  who  has  to  get 

up  exactly  at  six  o'clock.  Insomnia  troubles  only 

those  who  can  sleep  any  time. 

People  who  live  on  the  banks  of  the  Ganges 

never  bathe,  because  they  can  bathe  any  time. 

H  To  go  to  bed  at  a  certain  hour  and  to  get  up 

at  a  certain  hour  means  the  cultivation  of  a 

habit  of  the  body.  This  habit  puts  you  to  bed, 

tucks  you  in,  and  softly  sings  you  a  lullaby  that 

closes  down  your  eyelids,  bidding  dull  care 

begone  &  *£ 

Muldoon  holds  that  it  is  just  as  necessary  to  get 

up  in  the  morning  as  to  go  to  bed  at  night. 

DOWN  below,  the  twenty-four  men  have 
gathered — for  be  it  known  that  Muldoon 
takes  one  score  and  four,  and  no  more.  There 
are  light  callisthenics,  a  march  of  a  half  mile 
and  back,  then  the  shower-bath. 
All  this  with  great  deliberation.  The  victims 
are  given  bathrobes,  and  told  to  go  up-stairs, 
and  clothe  them  in  their  right  minds  and  citi 
zens'  clothes. 

67 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

Muldoon  is  a  great  believer  in  the  psychology 
of  duds.  When  we  eat  we  should  dress  like 
gentlemen,  just  as  if  we  were  to  meet  expected 
guests.  The  act  of  dressing  and  undressing  tends 
to  stop  brooding,  and  masticating  the  mental 
limit.  The  late  Dr.  Maurice  Bucke  once  told 
me  that  he  had  blocked  a  fit  of  hysteria  in  a 
woman,  by  asking  her  to  go  and  change  her 
dress,  and  do  up  her  hair,  because  he  wanted 
her  to  meet  a  certain  man  from  New  York  who 
was  coming  to  tea. 

Muldoon  says  the  gym  dress  is  only  valuable 
as  you  discard  it  for  clean,  dainty  linen,  and 
appear  before  the  world  a  new  man.  You  get 
dirty  in  order  that  you  may  get  clean,  but  to  get 
dirty  and  stay  so  is  no  virtue.  But  people  who 
are  always  clean  are  not  much  better  than  the 
other  kind. 

And  note  you  this,  Muldoon  trains  with  his 
trainers.  All  that  he  asks  them  to  do,  he  does. 
He  himself,  is  an  immaculate  dresser,  without 
being  extravagant.  But  he  believes  in  a  clean 
collar,  cuffs,  a  fresh  handkerchief  and  dental 
floss  jt  jt 
Breakfast  comes  after  the  gentle  work,  the 

68 


HEALTH     AND     WE  A  L  T  H 

bath,  and  the  getting  ready,  as  a  gift  of  the  gods. 
It  is  a  simple  meal  of  fruit,  toast,  poached  eggs, 
and  just  one  cup  of  coffee.  I  noticed  that  every 
man  polished  his  plate,  but  no  one  asked  for 
more  ^  ^ 

Muldoon  sits  at  the  server's  table  in  the  middle 
of  the  room,  and  each  plate  is  filled  under  his 
immediate  watchful  eye.  Without  being  fussy, 
he  yet  knows  exactly  what  every  man  is  doing 
— all  of  the  time. 

The  eating  is  done  with  great  deliberation. 
After  breakfast,  there  is  rest  for  just  an  hour, 
and  then  the  word  is  passed,  "Boots  and  sad 
dles!" 

You  get  into  your  riding  clothes,  and  go  to  the 
barn  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away.  If  you  are  a 
horseman,  your  animal  is  simply  pointed  out, 
but  if  the  work  is  new,  you  are  shown  how. 
Horseback  riding  is  always  a  scientific  treat 
ment  for  the  neurotic.  He  forgets  himself  in 
holding  on — and  most  of  Muldoon's  horses,  I 
saw,  were  selected  with  the  idea  of  preventing 
introspection  in  the  rider.  It  is  a  slow  ride  of 
two  hours  and  a  half.  Occasionally,  at  the  hills, 
you  dismount  and  lead  your  horse. 

69 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

One  little  pleasantry  is  occasionally  indulged  in 

when  there  are  raw  recruits  who  are  prone  to  be 

gay.  You  leave  your  horses  in  charge  of  a  groom 

and  walk  down  a  hill  through  the  woods  to  get 

a  drink  at  a  famous  medicinal  spring. 

When  you  get  back  to  the  road,  not  a  horse  is  in 

sight — they  have  broken  loose  and  gone  home. 

^f  It  is  five  miles  to   quarters — my  God!  or 

words  to  that  effect. 

Here  the  stout  men,  new  to  the  work,  begin  to 

plead,  to  beg,  to  swear — the  veterans  laugh  and 

start  off  on  foot. 

When  you  get  home  it  is  strip  again  and  a  bath; 

then  citizens'  clothes  and  dinner. 

After  dinner  there  is  a  lolling  time  of  an  hour; 

then  "the  stroll,"  a  long  slow  walk,  over  the 

meadow,  through  the  woods,  across  the  creek. 

Tf  Supper  comes  with  the  novitiate  hungry  as  a 

bear,  and  tired.  Exhaustion  is  something  else. 

^f  Then  it  is  that  the  deserters  desert.  They 

bribe  a  stable  man  to  take  them  back  to  town 

— in  a  wheelbarrow — any  way.  The  work  is 

killing — Muldoon  is  a  tyrant! 

But  if  they  remain  two  days,  they  stay  two  more, 

and  then  Nature  begins  to  play  through  them. 
70 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

Tired,  lame,  sore,  stupid — yes,  but  it  is  a  deli 
cious  stupidity,  not  one  of  fear  and  cold  feet.  It 
is  just  a  don't-give-a-dam-feeling. 
A  certain  amount  of  physical  exercise  excites 
mentality;  follow  up  your  out-door  work,  and 
mind  hibernates.  Exercise  is  an  investment — 
you  expend  the  energy  only  that  you  may  get 
back  more  energy.  You  spend  a  hundred  dol 
lars  to  get  back  one  hundred  and  fifty. 
All  this  physical  work  is  to  get  your  body  where 
it  can  rest  and  absorb. 

The  body  is  a  storage  battery — in  order  to 
replenish  its  cells  with  potential  energy,  you 
have  to  get  it  in  a  state  of  rest.  This  condition 
of  perfect  rest  comes  best  after  slow,  moderate 
exercise  in  the  open  air. 

Muldoon  simply  carries  his  men  over  the  hill  to 
a  point  where  they  are  so  tired  they  can  rest  and 
absorb.  He  knows  exactly  what  he  is  doing — he 
nearly  kills  them,  but  strangely  enough,  none 
die  on  the  premises.  Those  only  die  who  lack 
the  will  to  allow  him  to  use  his  will  to  amend 
theirs,  and  these  of  course  are  the  deserters  ^ 
If  It  is  so  much  easier  to  swallow  something  out 

of  a  bottle,  and  hire  a  man  to  give  you  massage. 

71 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 


If  But  everything  costs — if  you  would  have 
health,  cultivate  your  will  and  expend  energy. 
We  know  enough,  and  if  we  only  had  the  will 
to  methodize  our  lives,  we  could  all  live  a  hun 
dred  years,  unless  run  over  by  a  benzine  buggy. 
As  it  is,  for  lack  of  will  and  lack  of  a  Muldoon, 
we  die  just  when  we  should  be  getting  ready  to 
live.  Great  is  Muldoon,  trainer  of  men! 

HELP  YOURSELF  BY  HELPING  OTHERS 

The    Down-and-Outer 

LITTLE  hotels  often  feature  their  clerks. 
Small  tailors  proudly  put  forth  their 
cutters.  But  a  big  business  is  built  by 
many  earnest  men  working  together  for  one 
common  end  and  aim.  It  is  planned  by  one 
man,  but  is  carried  forward  by  many. 
A  steamship  is  manned  by  a  crew,  and  no  one 
particular  sailor  is  necessary.  You  can  replace 
any  man  in  the  engine  room  of  the  Furst  Bis 
marck,  and  she  will  cross  the  ocean  in  less  than 
six  days,  just  the  same. 

In  an  enterprise  that  amounts  to  anything,  all 
transactions  should  be  in  the  name  of  the  firm, 
72 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

because  the  firm  is  more  than  any  person  con 
nected  with  it.  Clerks  or  salesmen  who  have 
private  letter-heads,  and  ask  customers  to  send 
letters  to  them  personally,  are  on  the  wrong 
track  ^  e^ 

To  lose  your  identity  in  the  business  is  one  of 
the  penalties  of  working  for  a  great  institution. 
Don't  protest — it  is  no  new  thing — all  big  con 
cerns  are  confronted  by  the  same  situation- 
Get  in  line !  It  is  a  necessity. 
If  you  want  to  do  business  individually  and  in 
your  own  name,  stay  in  the  country  or  do  busi 
ness  for  yourself.  Peanut  stands  are  individual 
istic;  when  the  peanut  man  goes,  the  stand  also 
croaks.  Successful  corporations  are  something 
else  «jil  ^t 

Of  course  the  excuse  is  that  if  you  send  me  the 
order  direct,  I,  knowing  you  and  your  needs, 
can  take  much  better  care  of  your  wants  than 
that  despised  and  intangible  thing,  "the  house. " 
Besides,  sending  it  thru  the  Circumlocution 
Office  takes  time. 

There  is  something  more  to  say  ^t  First,  long 
experience  has  shown  that  "the  saving  of  time" 
is  exceedingly  problematic.  For  while  in  some 

73 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

instances  a  rush  order  can  be  gotten  off  the 
same  night  by  sending  it  to  an  individual,  yet 
when  your  individual  has  gone  fishing,  is  at  the 
ball  game,  or  is  sick,  or  else  given  up  his  job 
and  gone  with  the  opposition  house,  there  are 
great  and  vexatious  delays,  dire  confusions  and 
a  strain  on  vocabularies. 

This  thing  of  a  salesman  carrying  his  trade  with 
him,  and  considering  the  customers  of  the  house 
his  personal  property,  is  the  thought  of  only  2x4 
men.  A  house  must  have  a  certain  fixed  policy 
— a  reputation  for  square  dealing — otherwise  it 
could  not  exist  at  all.  It  could  not  even  give 
steady  work  and  good  pay  to  the  men  who 
think  it  would  be  only  a  hole  in  the  ground 
without  them. 

In  the  main,  the  policy  of  the  house  is  right. 
Don't  acquire  the  habit  of  butting  in  with  your 
stub-end  of  a  will  in  opposition  to  the  general 
policy  of  the  house.  To  help  yourself,  get  in  line 
with  your  house,  stand  by  it,  take  pride  in  it, 
respect  it,  uphold  it,  and  regard  its  interests  as 
yours.  The  men  who  do  this  become  the  only 
ones  who  are  really  necessary  jfc  They  are  the 
Top-notchers — Hundred-pointers.  The  worst 

74 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

about  the  other  plan  is  that  it  ruins  the  man 
who  undertakes  it.  For  a  little  while,  to  do  a 
business  of  your  own  in  the  shadow  of  the  big 
one,  is  beautiful — presents  come,  personal  let 
ters,  invitations,  favors,  is  Mr.  Johnson  in !  By 
and  by  Johnson  gets  chesty ;  he  resents  it  when 
other  salesmen  wait  on  his  customers  or  look 
after  his  mail.  Re  begins  to  plot  for  personal 
gain,  and  the  first  thing  you  know  he  is  a  plain 
grafter,  at  loggerheads  with  his  colleagues,  with 
the  interests  of  the  house  secondary  to  his  own. 
^f  We  must  grow  towards  the  house,  and  with 
it,  not  away  from  it.  Any  policy  which  lays  an 
employee  open  to  temptation,  or  tends  to  turn 
his  head,  causing  him  to  lose  sight  of  his  own 
best  interests,  seizing  at  a  small  present  better 
ment  and  losing  the  great  advantage  of  a  life's 
business,  is  bad.  The  open  cash-drawer,  valua 
ble  goods  lying  around  not  recorded  or  inven 
toried,  free  and  easy  responsibility,  good  enough 
plans,  and  let-'er-go  policies,  all  tend  to  ruin 
men  just  as  surely  as  do  cigarettes,  booze,  paste 
board  and  the  races. 

The  man  who  thinks  he  owns  "his  trade,"  and 
threatens  to  walk  out  and  take  other  employees 

75 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

and  customers  with  him,  is  slated  to  have  his 
dream  come  true.  The  manager  gives  in — the 
individualist  is  then  sure  he  is  right — the  en 
larged  ego  grows,  and  some  day,  the  house 
simply  takes  his  word  for  it,  and  out  he  goes. 
The  down-and-outer  heads  off  his  mail  at  the 
post-office,  and  for  some  weeks  embarrasses 
customers,  delays  trade  and  more  or  less  con 
fuses  system,  but  a  month  or  two  smooths 
things  out,  and  he  is  forgotten  absolutely.  The 
steamship  plows  right  along. 
Our  egotist  gets  a  new  job,  only  to  do  it  all  over 
again  if  he  can.  This  kind  of  a  man  seldom 
learns.  When  he  gets  a  job,  he  soon  begins  to 
correspond  with  rival  firms  for  a  better  one, 
with  intent  to  take  his  "good- will"  along. 
The  blame  should  go  back  to  the  first  firm 
where  he  was  employed,  that  allowed  him  a 
private  letter-head,  and  let  him  get  filled  with 
the  fallacy  that  he  was  doing  business  on  his 
own  account,  thus  losing  sight  of  the  great 
truth  that  we  win  thru  co-operation  and  not 
thru  segregation  or  separation.  The  firm's 
interests  are  yours;  if  you  think  otherwise, 

you  are  already  on  the  slide. 
76 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

The  only  man  who  should  be  given  full  swing 
and  unlimited  power  is  the  one  who  can  neither 
resign  nor  run  away  when  the  crash  comes,  but 
who  has  to  stick  and  face  the  deficit,  and  shoul 
der  the  disgrace  of  failure.  All  who  feel  free  to 
hike  whenever  the  weather  gets  thick  would  do 
well  to  get  in  line  with  the  policy  of  the  house. 
TJ  The  weak  point  in  Marxian  Socialism  is  that  it 
plans  to  divide  benefits,  but  does  not  say  who 
shall  take  care  of  deficits.  It  relieves  everybody 
of  the  responsibility  of  failure  and  defeat.  And 
just  remember  this,  unless  somebody  assumes 
the  responsibility  of  defeat  there  will  be  no 
benefits  to  distribute.  Also  this,  that  the  man 
who  is  big  enough  to  be  a  Somebody  is  also 
willing  to  be  a  nobody. 

EVERYBODY  SHOULD  REMEMBER  TO  FORGET 

Jealousy    a     Disease 

ON   the   railroad   station   platform   at 
Ashtabula  the  other  day,  a  Division 
Superintendent  in  the  employ  of  the 
"Lake  Shore,"  asked  me,  "Do  you  know  the 
cause    of    most    railway    accidents?"  "What 

77 


HEALTH     AN  D     W  E  A  L  T  H 

causes  most  accidents  ?  Why,  the  disobedience 
of  orders,"  I  answered. 

"No,  it  is  domestic  infelicity.  You  say,  *  diso 
bedience  of  orders,'  and  this  is  partially  right, 
but  the  cause  lies  deeper.  Why  should  a  rail 
way  employee  disobey  orders  ?  Why  should  an 
engineer  run  past  the  station  when  he  is  ordered 
to  stop  ?  It  is  his  own  life  he  endangers  most. 
Why  should  a  train-despatcher  send  out  two 
trains  facing  each  other  at  the  same  time  on  one 
track?  Or  why  does  a  switch-tender  throw  a 
switch  right  in  front  of  a  fast  express  ? 
"People  call  these  things  accidents,  but  that  is 
not  the  word — they  are  the  result  of  mental 
conditions.  And  it  is  for  the  General  Manager 
to  be  on  the  lookout  for  these  conditions  and 
every  good  railroad  manager  now  is.  Do  you 
remember  when  two  passenger-trains  met  head 
on,  out  in  Indiana,  last  year  ?  The  engineer  of 
one  of  these  trains  had  in  his  pocket  an  order  to 
take  the  side-track  at  a  certain  station.  He  ran  by 
that  station  at  fifty  miles  an  hour,  and  in  five 
minutes  there  was  a  crash  that  snuffed  out  fifty- 
four  lives  and  two  hundred  thousand  dollars' 

worth  of  property. 
78 


HEALTH    AND      WEALTH 

"I  knew  the  engineer.  Let  us  call  him  Hank 
Bristol,  for  that  was  n't  his  name.  He  was 
married  to  a  smashing,  dashing,  beautiful 
creature,  and  they  boarded  at  a  hotel — had 
no  children.  I  boarded  there,  too,  and  we  all 
made  eyes  at  Hank's  dashing  wife.  She  used 
to  play  the  piano  and  sing  a  little,  and  recite. 
The  love  of  one  plain,  honest  man  was  not 
enough  for  her — she  craved  the  admiration  of 
the  clever.  She  was  n't  a  bad  woman,  just  an 
idle  one  who  spent  every  spare  cent  Hank  made 
on  finery,  and  who  of  course,  wanted  the  finery 
and  herself  to  be  admired.  Hank  w7as  proud  of 
her,  too.  One  evening  he  kissed  the  dear  woman 
good-bye  and  started  out  to  make  a  night  run. 
He  went  out  to  the  roundhouse  and  at  the  last 
moment  the  Old  Man  decided  to  save  Hank 
back  and  let  him  take  out  a  special  carrying 
the  President  and  Directors  of  the  road  in  the 
morning.  Hank  was  tickled — it  was  a  great 
compliment  to  him.  He  went  home  to  tell  his 
wife;  he  used  to  tell  her  everything. 
"But  when  he  got  home, she  wasn't  there — she 
had  gone  to  the  theatre  with  a  boot  and  shoe 
drummer  from  Chicago. 

79 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

"Hank  went  away  and  walked  the  streets  till 
morning — his  wife  never  knew,  and  I  believe 
she  does  n't  yet.  He  walked  the  streets  all  night 
and  ran  out  the  special  in  the  morning. 
"  But  after  that  he  was  never  the  same.  He  used 
to  confide  in  me — he  just  had  to  tell  some  one 
to  keep  his  heart  from  bursting  with  suppressed 
grief  jt  ejt 

"He  grew  absent-minded,  lost  flesh,  appetite 
was  gone,  was  nervous — the  doctor  said  he 
should  quit  coffee  and  cut  out  half  the  tobacco. 
1["  I  knew  what  was  the  matter — he  was  jealous. 
I  told  him  so — and  he  laughed  a  laugh  that  gave 
me  goose-flesh.  'I  jealous  ?  Why,  Bill,  you  don't 
know  me — I  jealous  ?  The  idea!'  No,  I'm  only 
mad  at  myself,  Bill,  because  I'm  married  to  a 
damn  fool  of  a  woman,  who  makes  my  heart 
eat  itself  out  with  grief  because  she  lives  on  the 
fringe  of  folly.  Why  don't  I  leave  her!  My  God! 
Bill,  that  is  the  trouble — I  can't — I  love  her!' 
"Hank  did  n't  work  on  our  road  or  I'd  never 
have  let  him  touch  a  throttle,  no,  not  even  if 
he'd  been  my  brother.  I  knew  it  would  come. 
He  was  found  under  his  engine,  the  order  that 

he  had  disobeyed  in  his  pocket,  and  a  picture 
80 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

in  his  watch  of  the  woman  that  had  caused  the 
disaster.  No,  it  probably  has  never  dawned  on 
this  woman  that  she  caused  the  wreck.  She 
wore  deep  mourning  and  the  cutest  little  black 
bonnet  with  a  white  ruche.  She  was  the  most 
fetching  widow  you  ever  saw  and  she  knew  it 
without  being  told. 

"Yes,  that  is  what  I  said — marital  infelicity 
is  responsible  for  the  railroad  wrecks,  and 
causes  most  of  the  others,  too. 
"The  only  safe  man  is  the  one  whose  heart  is 
at  rest — who  has  a  home,  and  a  wife  who  stays 
there  and  minds  her  business,  looks  after  the 
babies,  has  no  secrets,  and  does  not  make  eyes 
at  other  men — that's  the  kind!  I  know  every 
man  who  works  for  me,  and  I  know  a  disturbed, 
distressed  and  jealous  man  a  train  length  awTay. 
My  heart  bleeds  for  'em,  but  I  serve  the  pub 
lic,  and  none  such  can  run  an  engine  for  me  jt 
"Do  you  see  that  man  in  the  blue  overalls  down 
there  at  the  end  of  the  platform  ?  Well,  he  is  the 
engineer  who  will  take  out  this  train.  See  how 
calm,  satisfied  and  self-possessed  he  is;  he  has 
no  cares,  no  anxieties  beyond  the  desire  to  do 
his  work  well.  He  is  not  so  awfully  brilliant,  but 

81 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

he  will  never  disappoint  you.  Now,  when  we 
start,  about  two  miles  out,  you  will  hear  the 
engine  give  three  soft  toots,  and  over  to  the  left, 
a  little  woman  will  come  out  of  a  white  cottage 
and  wave  her  apron. " 

The  conductor  then  called,  "All  aboard!"  The 
bell  clanged  warningly — we  stepped  into  the 
coach,  and  the  train  started.  We  had  now 
reached  the  outskirts  of  the  town,  and  were 
skimming  along  at  the  rate  of  thirty  miles  an 
hour  &  & 

The  engine  gave  three  soft,  short  toots,  and  I 
saw  the  white  cottage,  a  woman  standing  on 
the  back  porch,  with  children  holding  on  her 
skirts  all  'round — she  was  waving  a  big  check 
apron ! 

"  What  did  I  tell  you  ?  "  asked  the  Superintend 
ent — "rest  reigns  in  that  man's  heart — he  will 
never  forget  an  order — his  mind  is  free,  so  he 
does  his  work!  He  is  at  peace  with  himself,  and 
at  peace  with  the  world. " 

I  am  going  to  write  a  little  here  on  the  subject 
of  jealousy.  There  is  only  one  kind  of  jealousy, 
and  that  is  Sex  Jealousy.  People  often  use  the 

word  when  the  thing  they  refer  to  is  covetous- 
82 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

ness.  We  may  covet  a  man's  talent,  or  his  pos 
sessions,  or  we  may  dislike  a  person — conceiv 
ing  against  him  a  prejudice  and  thus  belittle 
him;  but  jealousy  is  another  matter.  Jealousy 
is  not  the  exclusive  possession  of  the  highly 
organized,  nor  the  extremely  sensitive,  nor  the 
irritable,  nor  the  weak.  The  fact  is,  the  strong 
est  natures  are  more  given  to  jealousy  than  the 
weaker  ones,  and  the  most  patient  man  may 
manifest  the  disease  in  its  most  virulent  form. 
Shakespeare,  who  knew  the  human  heart  as  no 
other  writer  ever  has,  gives  us  a  picture  of  jeal 
ousy.  The  play  of  Othello  is  simply  a  portrayal 
of  this  passion.  And  the  man  Othello  is  surely 
not  a  man  afflicted  with  "nerves"— he  is  a 
great,  serene,  and  self-sufficient  personality.  He 
is  healthy,  honest,  trustful,  truthful,  and  filled 
with  a  childlike  confidence. 
But  Othello  is  a  man — a  strong,  well-sexed 
man.  Beware  how  you  arouse  such  a  one! 
Othello's  intellect  was  no  match  for  the  cold, 
calculating  brain  of  lago,  and  he  was  played 
upon  by  this  plotting,  soulless  knave  until  his 
love  for  Desdemona  was  curdled  into  hate,  and 
he  killed  that  which,  in  all  the  world,  he  loved 

83 


HEALTH     AND      WEALTH 

best,  ^f  Only  the  strongly  sexed  are  ever  jealous. 
Weak  natures  are  indifferent — they  transfer 
affection  easily — there  isn't  much  to  bestow — 
the  change  is  easily  effected,  and  the  past  for 
gotten.  But  the  strong  give  themselves,  and  the 
bonds  they  make  are  fastened  to  their  souls 
with  hoops  of  steel.  Love,  to  such,  is  no  light 
matter. 

Jealousy  seems  the  absolute  reversal  of  love. 
It  is  the  swinging  from  the  sunny  warmth  of 
the  equator  to  the  frigid  cold  of  the  north  pole. 
I  once  saw  a  woman  in  a  ballroom,  calmly 
seated  and  chatting  pleasantly,  her  face  aglow 
with  good-will  and  the  genial  warmth  of  life.  A 
waltz  was  being  played,  and  the  couples  glided 
past  us  in  mazy,  dreamy  rhythm. 
"How  beautiful  it  all  is,"  she  said  to  me. 
And  as  she  said  the  words,  two  dancers  swung 
by  in  close  embrace,  evidently  conversing, 
their  faces  near  together. 

The  woman  talking  to  me  started  to  rise,  but 
sank  back.  The  color  faded  away  from  her  lips, 
her  eyes  changed  their  hue,  the  eyeballs  seemed 
glazed,  her  breath  came  in  hot,  feverish  gasps. 
I  spoke  to  her,  and  she  started,  absent-mindedly, 
84 


HEALTH     AND      WEALTH 

but  did  not  hear  what  I  said.  Over  her  fine  face 
came  a  look  of  abject  woe.  An  a\vful  pain  was 
clutching  at  her  heart ;  and  she  tried  to  hide  her 
anguish  with  a  smile,  but  the  smile  was  only  a 
grimace,  a  sorrowful  substitute,  and  it  seemed 
to  freeze  upon  her  face,  Medusa-like. 
"Call  my  carriage — I  am  ill,"  she  said  huskily. 
Later,  I  learned  that  the  woman  had  reached 
her  home,  gone  to  her  room,  locked  the  door, 
thrown  herself  upon  the  bed,  and  at  seven 
o'clock  the  next  morning  had  been  found  there, 
fully  robed  in  all  her  ballroom  finery,  moaning 
and  groaning,  half  delirious.  She  was  undressed 
and  put  to  bed  by  her  maids,  and  a  physician 
summoned. 

"A  kind  of  typhoid  fever,  caused  by  drinking 
impure  water,"  said  the  doctor,  and  cited  sev 
eral  other  similar  cases  that  had  occurred  in  the 
neighborhood.  It  was  fully  six  weeks  before  the 
woman  was  able  to  be  oirt  of  her  house  again  ^t 
The  jealous  spasm  that  had  come  over  the  lady 
was  caused  by  the  sight  of  her  husband  dancing 
with  a  certain  woman.  He  might  dance  writh  any 
other  woman — but  not  that  woman — he  had 

promised  he  would  not ! 

85 


HEALTH     AND      WEALTH 


The  sight  stifled  every  generous  emotion  of  her 
soul,  and  if  she  had  had  the  power,  she  would 
have  blasted  the  man  and  woman  dead  at  her 
feet.  Did  she  have  any  real  "cause"  for  jeal 
ousy  ?  I  do  not  know — probably  not.  Othello 
had  no  cause  for  jealousy.  Reasons  light  as  air 
are,  to  the  jealous,  confirmation  strong  as  Holy 
Writ.  But  the  husband  who  caused  his  wife  this 
awful  pain  might  have  been  simply  stupid  and 
innocent;  he  might  have  been  malicious  and 
purposeful  in  his  act;  or  he  might  have  been 
guilty  and  indifferent.  I  do  not  know.  All  that  I 
relate  is  the  phenomena. 

Some  months  ago,  in  Cincinnati,  a  colored 
sleeping-car  porter  was  arrested  for  attempting 
to  kill  his  wife.  He  was  slashing  her  with  a  razor, 
and  doubtless  would  have  killed  her  had  not 
help  arrived  at  the  minute.  She  was  taken  to  the 
hospital,  he  to  jail.  The  doctors  said  the  woman 
could  not  live,  and  after  binding  up  her  wounds 
and  making  her  as  comfortable  as  possible,  a 
notary  was  summoned  to  take  the  woman's 
ante-mortem  testimony.  And  this  was  her  state 
ment:  "My  husband  was  jealous  of  me,  and 
tried  to  kill  me;  but  it  was  my  fault — I  pur- 

86 


HEALTH     AND      WEALTH 

posely  made  him  jealous  by  pretending  I  loved 
another  man.  When  I  told  him  this,  he  became 
crazy  —  it  was  all  my  fault  —  bring  him  here,  so 
I  may  know  before  I  die  that  he  has  forgiven 


me." 


The  doctor  in  charge  went  to  the  police  judge 
the  next  day  and  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  if 
the  prisoner  was  released  and  went  to  the  hospi 
tal  to  help  nurse  the  woman,  she  would  recover; 
but  if  the  man  was  punished  and  separated 
from  the  woman,  she  would  certainly  languish 
and  die. 

The  judge  decided  to  do  an  unjudicial  thing, 
and  released  the  prisoner  on  his  own  recogni 
zance.  The  man  went  to  the  hospital,  remained 
there  as  a  helper  to  the  nurses,  and  inside  of  a 
month  he  and  the  woman  went  away  with  the 
blessings  and  the  good  will  of  everybody  in  the 
place,  happy  —  happier  than  ever  before. 
So  much  for  a  case  where  people  of  very  lowly 
intellect  are  involved.  They  lived  on  the  same 
plane  and  were  mated.  Let  us  now  have  an 
instance  where  one  of  the  intellectual  giants  of 
the  earth  was  concerned,  and  the  woman  one 
who  was  utterly  out  of  his  class. 

87 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

When  thirty-two  years  of  age,  Goethe  had  a 
misunderstanding  with  Charlotte  von  Stein, 
to  whom  he  had  written  a  daily  love-letter  for 
eleven  years.  He  now  very  coldly  made  a  bar 
gain  with  the  father  of  Christine  Vulpius,  that 
the  girl  should  come  and  keep  house  for  him. 
The  girl,  it  seems,  was  not  consulted.  She  was 
just  twenty,  and  pink — an  obliging,  good- 
natured,  strong,  buxom  country  lass. 
She  took  charge  of  Goethe's  household,  did 
what  she  was  ordered  to  do,  and  was  never  in 
evidence  unless  he  invited.  The  guests  and 
callers  never  saw  her. 

After  some  months,  when  Goethe  met  Char 
lotte  von  Stein  at  a  reception,  and  she  coldly 
asked — "Ah,  and  how  is  the  health  of  Miss 
Vulpius?"  she  probed  the  proud  Goethe  to 
the  quick. 

Goethe  grew  to  be  very  fond  of  Christine — she 
was  so  obedient,  so  faithful,  so  loyal !  She  never 
thwarted  her  master,  taunted  him,  nor  annoyed 
him — she  just  served  him.  To  be  sure,  she  took 
no  interest  in  his  writings,  and  this  was  better 
than  if  she  had  been  a  little  higher  in  the  scale, 
and  sought  to  rival  him  in  literature. 

88 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

But  the  day  came  when  her  father  thought  it 
would  be  better  for  her  to  have  a  husband  than 
to  be  the  mistress  of  a  poet,  and  he  brought  a 
worthy  yeoman  of  her  own  class  to  see  her.  The 
swain  came  to  see  Christine,  and  Goethe,  the 
proud  and  dignified,  who  had  never  felt  the 
pangs  of  jealousy,  was  stung  and  wrung  and 
wounded  to  his  heart's  core.  His  appetite  van 
ished — his  nights  were  sleepless.  The  swain 
came  back  a  second  time,  and  Wolfgang  Goethe 
threw  him  bodily  into  the  street,  causing  him 
such  a  panic  that  he  ran  for  his  life,  and  never 
again  returned. 

After  living  with  "Miss  Vulpius"  for  twenty 
years,  Goethe  married  her,  "in  order  that  their 
children  might  be  legitimate."  A  man's  acts 
are  usually  right,  but  his  reasons  seldom  are. 
Goethe  married  this  woman  because  he  loved 
her,  and  he  wished  to  prove  it  to  her  beyond 
the  ghost  of  a  doubt.  To  be  sure,  they  lived  in 
a  different  intellectual  world,  but  there  was 
another  world  in  which  they  met  as  equals  ^ 
Call  their  relationship  base  if  you  will — that 
question  is  not  up  for  discussion  at  this  time. 

Goethe  was  at  times  jealous  of  this  woman — 

89 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

she  had  grown  to  be  a  part  of  his  life — she  min 
istered  to  his  well-being,  and  to  secure  her  more 
fully  to  himself,  he  proclaimed  to  all  the  world 
that  he  had  made  her  his  legal  wife. 
I  once  heard  Dr.  James  Bryce  Howard,  lec 
turer  on  Pathology  at  Bellevue,  make  a  state 
ment  to  the  effect  that  cancer  was  caused  by 
jealousy.  His  argument  was  something  like  this : 
Jealousy  at  once  affects  the  circulation,  and  the 
emotion  strikes  at  the  organs  of  reproduction. 
In  moments  of  good  will,  when  the  mind  is 
calm,  the  circulation  is  complete,  strong, 
natural;  the  secretions  are  active,  the  pores 
open,  the  glands  do  their  perfect  work.  Let  a 
spasm  of  hate  and  fear  sweep  over  the  person, 
and  the  heart  thumps  in  wild  alarm,  and  then 
dies  down  until  you  can  scarcely  detect  its  throb. 
The  skin  grows  cold,  the  pores  close,  the  secre 
tions  cease  as  though  a  sirocco  of  death  had 
swept  over  the  body.  There  is  congestion  in 
the  parts,  then  fever,  and  Nature  is  working 
hard  to  restore  an  equilibrium.  That  is  just  the 
way  cancer  grows — there  is  a  stoppage  in  the 
circulation,  and  Nature  tries  to  clear  it  away 

by  sending  more  blood  to  the  part  <£•  This 
90 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

increased  nutrition  causes  a  growth  to  form,  and 
Nature,  who  works  always  according  to  general 
laws,  not  caring  for  the  individual,  kills  the 
patient  in  an  effort  to  cure  him. 
More  women  suffer  from  cancer  than  men,  and 
three-fourths  of  all  cases  of  cancer  with  women 
are  in  the  mammal  glands,  or  are  connected 
directly  with  the  sex  organs.  And  in  summing 
up  the  case  the  Doctor  says:  " Cancer  is  caused 
by  misdirected  or  abnormal  sex  emotion.  If  we 
could  bring  about  perfect  love  relations  we 
could  do  away  with  cancer  as  well  as  most 
other  diseases. " 

There  is  no  form  of  woe  that  will  cause  a  suffer 
ing  so  terrible  as  jealousy.  It  grows  by  what  it 
feeds  upon — a  suspicion !  Ah !  it  clutches  for  it, 
even  though  it  knows  it  is  poison.  It  lies  in  wait, 
it  watches,  it  listens;  and  finding  the  proof  it 
wants,  suffers  more  than  ever.  It  suffers  if  it 
finds  proof,  and  suffers  if  it  does  n't. 
For  bodily  pain,  Nature  is  pitiful,  and  quickly 
sends  insensibility.  But  for  the  woes  of  the  heart 
there  is  only  lingering  torture — nights  of  tossing 
unrest,  and  days  of  lagging,  leaden  misery. 
In  bereavement  by  death  there  soon  comes  calm 

91 


HEALTH     AND     WEALT H 

and  sweet  peace,  in  thought  of  the  virtues  of  the 
loved  one  gone.  We  consider  and  dwell  upon  the 
good  that  was  in  the  dead,  but  in  jealousy  we 
think  only  of  the  worst  in  the  living.  It  is  a  blast 
ing,  withering  hate  towards  that  which  we  love 
best.  It  corrodes  the  heart  and  makes  the  man 
hate  himself.  It  forms  a  trinity  of  hate — hate 
for  the  woman  he  loves,  hate  for  the  suspected 
person,  hate  for  himself. 

That  is  why  it  stings  so — the  jealous  person 
cannot  justify  himself.  And  so  those  who  are 
most  jealous  always  affirm  they  are  not  so  at 
all,  and  scout  the  idea  in  hysterical  emphasis. 
So  far,  the  passion  of  jealousy  has  never  been 
analyzed.  Many  men  have  written  upon  it,  and 
all  they  attempt  to  do  is  to  describe  its  manifes 
tations.  The  cause  of  jealousy  is  never  equal  to 
the  tragedy  that  tears  and  rends  the  soul,  and 
so  no  cause  is  ever  sufficient.  To  analyze  it  per 
fectly,  we  must  perfectly  comprehend  the  human 
heart,  and  this  we  can  never  do.  Human  nature, 
at  last,  remains  the  great  riddle  of  God — contra 
diction  and  paradox  confront  us  at  every  turn. 
And  should  we  possibly  come  to  know  one  soul, 

this  gives  no  index  to  others,  for  in  nature  there 
92 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

are  no  duplicates.  ^fWho  can  explain  why  a 
woman  with  a  great  and  tender  love  for  a  man 
will  at  times  tantalize  him  into  a  frenzy  ?  Who 
can  tell  why  the  simple-hearted  Moor,  Othello, 
who  loved  the  gentle  Desdemona,  should  con 
ceive  such  a  hatred  for  her,  prompted  by  a 
flimsy  and  groundless  suspicion,  that  he  takes 
her  life  ?  Where  these  insurrections  of  the  heart 
are  born  that  wreck  and  rend  the  souls  of  men, 
is  to  us  unguessed — we  simply  do  not  know. 
Jealousy  seems  a  sort  of  rudimentary  savage 
instinct  that  has  come  down  to  us  from  a  time 
when  its  manifestation  was  a  violence  that 
knew  no  restraint,  but  with  tooth  and  claw 
struck  its  object  dead,  so  only  the  strongest 
survived.  But  now  we  partially  hold  the  savage 
hate  in  check,  and  jealousy,  instead  of  hurting 
the  other  person,  hurts  worst  the  one  who  is 
jealous.  We  hug  the  hate  and  let  it  gnaw  at  our 
vitals,  and  poison  all  the  well-springs  of  our 
life  with  its  venom. 

The  cure  is  not  easy,  and  only  a  person  of  heroic 
moral  fiber  can  face  the  truth  and  bring  phi 
losophy  to  bear,  to  heal  and  cure  ^t  At  first 
thought,  indifference  is  the  panacea — cease  to 

93 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

love  at  all — be  a  stoic — but  this  is  to  sink  below 
jealousy,  and  not  to  rise  above  it. 
To  say  that  jealous  people  ought  to  separate,  is 
trite;  and  it  is  true  that  people  having  totally 
different  temperaments  should  not  force  their 
personal  presence  on  each  other  to  tantalize  and 
taunt  and  make  this  earth  a  hell. 
If  that  engineer  could  have  separated  from  his 
wife,  she  gone  her  way  and  he  his,  he  would  in 
time  have  become  indifferent  to  her,  and  she 
might  have  found  a  man  she  could  love  better. 
If  she  had  lived  two  hundred  miles  away,  he 
would  not  have  cared  who  called  upon  her,  or 
when  she  went  to  the  theatre.  But  to  see  her 
daily — to  live  with  her  and  yet  know  that  she 
was  living  a  life  outside  of  his,  stung  him  to  the 
quick  <£&  e2* 

Had  Christine  Vulpius  gone  away  and  married 
a  worthy  peasant,  Goethe  would  have  wished 
her  well,  and  sent  presents  to  the  children;  but 
when  she  lived  in  his  house,  and  was  a  part  of 
his  life,  and  was  being  courted  by  another  man, 
Goethe  grew  furious  and  paced  his  room  in  pain 
and  wrath.  Separation  is  better  than  lingering 
death.  But  jealousy  may  possibly  come  to  those 

94 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

couples  who  really  need  each  other.  In  it  always 
is  the  element  of  dissatisfaction  with  self,  and 
no  pain  and  disappointment  equals  this — when 
we  are  disappointed  with  ourselves. 
Yet  very  seldom  are  we  quite  honest  and  frank 
with  ourselves;  instead  of  laying  the  blame  at 
home,  we  bestow  it  on  another. 
But  let  us  be  honest — the  man  who  is  jealous 
is  himself  to  blame  for  the  most  part. 
But  even  this  knowledge  does  not  mitigate  the 
woe.  This  engineer  thought  that  if  he  had  only 
been  a  little  more  clever  he  might  have  filled  the 
heart  of  his  wife  so  she  would  not  have  cared  for 
the  admiration  of  other  men.  So  his  trouble  was 
partially  a  dissatisfaction  with  himself  jt  And 
if  at  last  she  really  was  a  hypocrite  and  a  fool, 
why,  he  was  a  fool,  too,  for  having  married  her. 
Goethe  was  far  above  Christine  Vulpius  in  intel 
lect,  but  he  felt  that  he  had  failed  to  make  her 
happy,  else  surely  she  would  not  have  accepted 
another  lover. 

But  concerning  these  tragedies  of  the  heart,  the 
wise  man  does  not  dogmatize.  His  heart  throbs 
for  all  those  who  suffer.  And  in  his  own  life  he 
would  not  escape  the  pangs  of  disprized  love  by 

95 


*L  EALTH     AND     WEALTH 

loving  less;  rather  does  he  love  more.  He  seeks 
to  send  his  love  to  all,  and  make  it  universal. 
That  he  concentrates  his  affection  on  certain 
ones  more  than  others,  may  be  true,  but  he  fixes 
his  thought  upon  the  good  that  is  in  them,  and 
waives  all  else. 

Folly,  dissipation,  absurdity,  extravagance,  are 
all  about  us ;  but  these  things  do  not  rend  our 
souls,  cause  us  sleepless  nights,  and  turn  the 
genial  current  of  our  lives  awry  jt  Let  us 
remember  that  we  cannot  afford  to  admit  hate 
into  our  hearts — we  are  the  ones  who  suffer — the 
wrong  is  not  ours,  and  so  we  will  not  take  it  in. 
^|  Each  soul  is  a  center  in  itself,  and  the  mistakes 
of  others — the  follies  of  wife  or  child,  husband 
or  parent,  are  none  of  ours.  We  are  individuals 
—we  came  into  the  world  alone,  we  live  alone, 
and  we  die  alone;  and  we  must  be  so  girded 
'round  by  right  that  no  fault  of  another  can 
touch  us.  God  is  on  our  side — nothing  can 
harm  us  but  ourselves.  Let  us  make  sure  that 
we  are  right,  and  then  the  follies  of  others  will 
pass  us  by  unscathed.  And  above  all,  remember, 
it  is  not  for  us  to  punish.  "Vengeance  is  mine: 

I  will  repay,  saith  the  Lord. " 
96 


HEALTH     AND     W  E  A  L  T  H 

GET  THE  STUDY  HABIT  AND  You  'LL   BE   A 
MORE  THAN  MEDIOCRE  PERSON 

Foster     of     Scranton 

ALL  good  Philistines  who  read  their  Col 
lect  closely  will  recall  that  Mr.  Thomas 
J.  Foster  is  one  of  the  eight  original 
members  of  the  American  Legion  of  Honor. 
Several  persons  have  recently  written  to  me 
asking  who  Mr. "Foster  is;  a  few  have  written  in 
quiring  what  Judge  Lindsey  has  done,  and  one 
gentleman  unmuzzled  his  ignorance  and  in 
quired  concerning  the  achievements  of  Thomas 
A.  Edison.  I  have  a  long  article  on  Edison  which 
I  expect  to  print  soon,  unless  restrained  by 
injunction.  As  for  Lindsey,  I  may  say  some 
thing  more  about  him,  too,  but  just  now  the 
theme  is  Thomas  J.  Foster. 
Along  late  in  the  eighties,  Thomas  J.  Foster 
was  editor  of  a  daily  newspaper  at  Shenandoah, 
Pa.  He  was  a  man  in  moderate  circumstances, 
practically  unknown,  as  he  had  not  committed 
high  crimes,  and  his  field  of  usefulness  had  been 
confined  to  local  circles.  He  had  been  a  clerk, 
a  storekeeper,  a  school-teacher,  a  printer  and 

97 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

then  an  editor.  This  natural  evolution  had  come 
through  the  Study  Habit,  the  microbe  of  which 
he  had  acquired  in  his  young  manhood. 
In  passing  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  say  that 
every  man  (arid  eke  woman)  is  controlled  by 
Habit.  When  Habits  are  young  they  are  like 
lion  cubs,  easily  managed,  but  later  there  comes 
a  time  when  they  manage  you.  Bad  Habits  may 
put  you  on  the  Avernus  Jerkwater,  No.  23,  with 
a  ticket  one  way  to  Nowhere. 
Good  Habits  are  mentors,  guardian  angels, 
and  servants  that  regulate  your  sleep,  your 
work,  your  thought.   It  is   the  Study  Habit 
that  distinguishes  men.  Once  you  get  it,  only 
death  can  take  it  from  you — and  perhaps  even 
death  can't.  I  really  don't  know! 
Foster  had  acquired  the  Study  Habit.  He  was 
nearly  fifty,  and  if  Oslerism  is  correct,  was  ripe 
for  the  ether  cone.  But  wait :  Foster  had  an  Idea 
—all  of  his  life  had  been  leading  up  to  this. 
The  Idea  crystallized  through  a  tragedy,  and 
sometimes  tragedy  is  a  blessing,  even  though  it 
may  be  purchased  at  a  terrific  cost. 
It  seems  that  a  near  and  dear  friend  of  Foster, 

a  banker  and  manager  of  one  of  the  big  coal 
08 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

companies,  went  into  a  coal-mine  with  several 
friends  on  a  little  tour  of  inspection. 
Night  came  on  and  the  party  did  not  return.  It 
was  thought  they  had  gone  to  a  neighboring 
village,  so  messengers  were  sent  out.  The  mes 
sengers  returned  with  no  tidings.  The  last  seen 
of  the  men  was  when  they  were  entering  the 
mine  «^  jt 

Several  coal-miners  had  been  made  deathly  sick 
through  working  in  this  same  mine,  and  a  dread 
superstition  was  abroad  that  the  place  was 
haunted.  The  miners  refused  to  enter.  So  the 
editor  headed  the  rescue  party,  first  starting 
the  air-pumps,  and  was  lowered  from  the  dark 
ness  of  the  night  down  into  the  blackness  of  the 
bowels  of  the  earth. 

He  groped  his  way  forward  and  ere  long  the 
flaring  torches  revealed  the  lifeless  body  of  his 
friend  where  he  had  fallen,  and  another  man  on 
his  back  whom  evidently  he  was  attempting  to 
rescue,  when  Death  canceled  his  efforts.  All 
were  dead. 

What  killed  the  men  ?  The  miners  who  had 
worked  all  their  lives  in  mines  did  not  know — 
it  was  a  noiseless,  tasteless,  odorlessfUnysteri- 

99 


HEALTH     AND      W  E  A  L  T  H 

ous  something — that  was  all  they  knew.  Some 
spoke  of  it  as  "the  hand  of  God. " 
But  Foster,  the  editor,  knew  what  it  was.  He 
knew  that  every  result  was  preceded  by  a  cause; 
and  that  as  soon  as  things  are  understood  they 
cease  to  be  either  mysterious  or  miraculous  <£ 
These  tragedies  had  been  happening  for  years, 
only  the  victims  were  obscure  persons,  and 
others  waiting  for  their  jobs  filled  the  gaps,  and 
the  saddened  and  desolated  homes  were  soon 
forgotten.  It  is  a  busy  world,  my  masters. 
But  now  through  the  heart  of  theteditor  ran  a 
spasm  of  shame  to  think  that  society  should 
allow  the  men  who  serve  it  to  go  on  risking 
their  lives  in  ignorance  and  peril. 
He  wrote  a  scathing  editorial  calling  upon*  the 
citizens  of  the  state  to  see  to  it  that  mine  fore 
men  should  be  educated  sufficiently  in  a  scien 
tific  way  so  as  to  safeguard  the  lives  of  their 
men  &  ^ 

This  editorial,  with  several  others  like  it,  led  to 
the  passing  of  a  law  requiring  that  mine  fore 
men  should  pass  an  examination  in  technical 
knowledge  that  would  render  their  work  reason 
ably  safe. 


TOO 


HEALTH     AND      WE  ALT  II 

This  law  at  first  seemed  to  work  a  decided  hard 
ship  on  many  good  men,  some  of  whom  did  not 
have  a  sufficient  education  to  fulfil  the  require 
ments:  and  the  editor  found  himself  strongly 
denounced.  But  instead  of  fighting  his  would-be 
enemies,  he  invited  them  to  come  to  his  office, 
as  he  had  a  proposition  to  make  them.  They 
came,  and  there  he  laid  before  them  a  plan- 
he  would  teach  them.  Yes,  they  could  use  his 
books,  and  he  would  explain  the  questions,  the 
questions  more  dreaded  than  fire-damp.  So  the 
mine  foremen  met  evenings  at  the  editor's  sanc 
tum,  and  the  miners  with  foreman  ambitions 
came.  Many  of  these  strong  men  were  appalled 
at  long  division  and  few  could  wrestle  fractions, 
but  the  editor  prepared  easy  lessons  in  leaflet 
form,  and  thru  his  patience  and  his  love,  terror 
fled.  The  lessons  were  really  easy — everything 
is  easy  when  you  know  how.  The  miners  got 
their  lessons  and  laughed  to  think  they  ever  had 
a  fear  ^  £, 

Some  of  the  miners  lived  ten  miles  or  more 
away,  and  these  prepared  their  "sums"  or 
"examples"  and  sent  them  in  by  mail  for  cor 
rection  &  t 


IOI 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

There  was  a  "Miner's  Column"  in  the  editor's 
newspaper,  and  this  spread  the  good  work.  In 
a  year  the  Miners'  Correspondence  Course  had 
spread  all  over  Pennsylvania,  and  down  into 
West  Virginia  and  out  to  Ohio.  It  seemed  to  fill 
a  need — men  were  being  educated  for  their 
work,  while  at  their  work.  Occasionally  miners 
became  foremen ;  foremen  became  superintend 
ents.  When  government  inspectors  were  wanted, 
"Foster's  men"  were  always  given  first  choice. 
The  men  who  took  up  the  Study  Habit  didn't 
have  so  much  time  to  spend  at  the  saloons  «^t 
With  their  spare  money  they  bought  books.  By 
the  light  of  the  evening  lamp  they  worked  at 
their  lessons,  often  rocking  the  cradle  at  the 
same  time — the  mother  busy  at  her  housework. 
If  The  editor's  Idea  was  making  head.  The  Idea 
itself  was  an  old  one — but  its  application  was 
the  work  of  the  editor  man.  The  Chautauqua 
was  an  inspiration  to  thousands,  but  it  stopped 
with  history  and  belles-lettres.  To  teach  tech 
nology  by  mail  seemed  too  much — we  all  sup 
posed  a  teacher  at  our  elbow  was  necessary, 
simply  because  we  had  always  had  a  teacher 
at  our  elbow.  We  did  not  realize  that  the  things 


IO2 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

we  work  out  by  ourselves  benefit  us  most.  The 
Correspondence  School  plan  gives  the  necessary 
assistance  and  inspiration  to  Home  Study,  and 
helps  you  to  help  yourself. 
The  Mining  Course  was  a  success,  why  not 
other  lines  of  study  as  well  ?  And  Thomas  J. 
Foster,  the  editor,  surprised  at  the  success  of 
his  Idea,  transformed  his  newspaper  business 
into  a  college  and  became  the  world's  school 
master — a  teacher  who  teaches  by  mail  e^His 
business  is  known  as  the  International  Corre 
spondence  Schools,  of  Scranton,  Pa. 
In  fifteen  years  he  has  enrolled  a  million 
students.  He  has  over  two  hundred  separate 
courses  of  study,  covering  almost  the  entire 
field  of  art,  textile,  manual  and  commercial 
endeavor.  His  pupils  are  men  and  women  of 
various  ages  in  every  walk  of  life.  He  enrolls 
more  students  every  month  than  enter  Harvard, 
Yale,  Princeton  and  Dartmouth  in  a  year. 
One  hundred  and  fifty  railroad  companies 
employ  his  services  in  teaching  their  work 
men  so  to  better  safeguard  the  lives  and  prop 
erty  of  their  patrons.  Many  colleges  co-operate 

with  him  and  use  his  lesson  leaves  and  text- 

103 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

books.  The  United  States  Government  has 
officially  endorsed  the  work,  and  given  prefer 
ence  in  naval,  engineering  and  electrical  work 
to  his  students.  He  has  the  largest  and  best 
printing  plant  in  the  world.  He  utilizes  a  capi 
tal  of  four  million  dollars.  One  adult  out  of 
every  twenty-seven  in  America  is  a  student  in 
the  International  Correspondence  Schools  <£ 

RECENTLY  I  attended  the  Fifteenth 
anniversary  of  the  I.  C.  S.  Two  thou 
sand  people  were  present  from  all  over  the 
world — mostly  men  connected  with  the  Corres 
pondence  School  work.  There  were  formal 
exercises  in  a  theatre,  with  much  good  music, 
and  some  good  speaking,  for  did  I  not  say  I 
was  there  ?  Then  we  were  conducted  over  ten 
acres  of  floor-space  and  were  shown  the  inner 
workings  of  the  Idea. 

The  teachers  who  handle  the  examination- 
papers  are  specialists,  of  course ;  they  represent 
the  principal  colleges  of  the  world,  and  while 
some  of  the  best  have  diplomas  only  from  the 
University  of  Hard  Knocks,  all  have  taken  one 

or  more  courses  in  the  I.  C.  S.  The  usefulness 
104 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

of  the  Idea  turns  on  organization — method  jt 
And  the  institution  is  certainly  a  monument  to 
its  founder.  Order,  cleanliness,  quiet,  beauty, 
light,  ventilation,  sanitation  everywhere  pre 
vail.  It  all  works  like  a  Howard  watch. 
In  the  evening  there  was  a  banquet  where  were 
seated  a  thousand  men ;  and  five  hundred  ladies, 
envious  and  admiring,  fluttered  in  the  galleries. 
The  use  of  a  banquet  is  to  break  the  social  ice, 
so  I  am  told. 

Thirty-one  men  shone  resplendent  at  the  speak 
ers  table  in  full  dress-suits ;  two  were  in  citizens' 
clothes,  one  being  your  uncle  and  the  other  one 
John  Mitchell. 

John's  pastorate  is  bigger  than  mine — four  hun 
dred  thousand  men  place  their  destinies  in  his 
hands,  and  the  happiness  and  wrelfare  of  about 
two  million  people  are  in  his  keeping.  Half  a 
million  people  read  my  stuff,  but  none  follow 
my  suggestions  or  accept  my  ideas  as  truth 
unless  they  wish. 

John  Mitchell's  face  shows  care,  and  his  sober, 
earnest  ways  tell  of  grave  responsibilities.  He 
is  a  distinguished  man  in  appearance  and  man 
ner.  No  man  would  ever  approach  him  and  ask, 

105 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

"Sir,  are  you  anybody  in  particular?"  ^f  John 
Mitchell  made  the  best  speech  of  the  Meeting. 
His  voice  is  neither  loud,  high  nor  deep,  but 
it  is  so  finely  modulated  and  so  vibrant  with 
feeling  that  it  stills  every  buzzing  whisper  and 
carries  conviction  home.  A  very  brave  and 
manly  man  is  John  Mitchell.  He  has  battles 
in  front  of  him,  for  his  barque  is  not  yet  in 
peaceful  waters,  but  if  he  does  as  much  in  the 
next  ten  years  as  he  has  in  the  past,  he  '11  anchor 
for  four  years  in  the  White  House,  if  some  of 
you  fellows  do  not  look  out !  He  has  made  mis 
takes,  they  say,  but  I  do  not  remember  just 
what  they  are;  yet  when  one  thinks  of  the  mobs 
he  has  faced  in  their  fury,  not  to  mention  that 
five-days'  fusillade  of  Wayne  MacVeagh,  you 
are  astounded  that  he  has  not  made  more.  Yet 
he  was  born  in  Illinois ! 

But  here  he  sits,  smiling,  alert,  poised,  and 
when  he  arises  to  speak  he  does  not  cough, 
sputter,  rant,  harangue,  scold,  grope,  nor 
apologize,  but  proceeds  with  a  fine  and  very 
gentle  reserve  to  speak  of  "the  people  whom 
I  have  the  honor  to  serve."  He  chooses  his 
words  with  care  and  marches  them  with  pre- 

106 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

cision,  spacing  each  paragraph  and  packing 
each  pause  with  feeling.  He  says  just  enough 
and  sits  down  at  a  time  when  everybody  wishes 
he  would  go  on. 

My  seat  happened  to  be  between  that  of  the 
Right  Reverend  Bishop  Ethelbert  Talbot  of 
the  Episcopal  Church  and  the  Right  Reverend 
Bishop  Holban  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 
Whether  this  peculiar  seating-arrangement  was 
the  result  of  malice  prepense,  invidious  and 
sinister,  planned  and  perpetrated  by  J.  D.  Jones, 
Master  of  Ceremonies,  or  the  work  of  the  infal 
lible  dice,  I  cannot  say.  The  genial  toastmaster 
spoke  of  the  "three  bishops  we  have  with  us," 
and  then  referred  to  me  as  "The  Bishop  of  all 
Outsiders. "  What  the  two  sure-enough  bishops 
might  have  done  had  I  not  been  between  them, 
no  man  can  say,  but  as  it  was,  amity  and  peace 
prevailed.  Both  bishops  were  charming — they 
had  left  their  bishop's  voices  at  home,  and  we 
conversed  on  the  New  Education  and  the 
Brotherhood  of  Man.  Both  read  the  Choice 
Stuff,  and  while  I  refrained  from  any  reference 
to  Torquemada,  Savonarola,  Pope  Alexander, 

Borgia  and  Henry  the  Ate,  they  in  turn  had 

107 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

only  words  of  kindness  for  Goliath,  and  neither 
asked  where  East  Aurora  really  is,  nor  called 
it  "The  Philippine  Magazine."  Outside  of 
their  official  capacity  bishops  are  absolutely 
unobjectionable. 

Governor  Pennypacker  was  present  and  made 
a  telling  speech,  although  the  suggestion  that  he 
speak  his  speech,  I  prithee,  into  a  phonograph 
and  send  the  record  by  express,  should  have 
been  followed.  The  Governor  has  a  presence 
like  an  observant  thumb,  and  when  he  begins 
to  speak  he  simply  clucks  and  gurgles  like  a 
graphophone  gone  wrong  and  pushes  out  a  few 
falsetto  notes  in  high  C  as  an  introduction.  He 
is  the  homeliest  man  in  America,  excepting 
William  Hawley  Smith,  and  in  point  of  pulchri 
tude  certainly  pushes  Hawley  hard  for  first 
place.  The  caricatures  of  him  are  all  quite 
complimentary.  Yet  when  he  gets  a  clutch  on  his 
think-apparatus,  you  are  amazed  and  delighted 
to  follow  his  wealth  of  allusion  and  the  orderly 
procession  of  his  thought  <£»  But  above  all, 
Pennypacker  is  an  honest  man,  and  God  knows 
there  are  not  many  of  us. 
Another  great  disappointment  to  me  was  S.  S. 

108 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

McClure,  Limited,  who  strangely  enough  is  n't, 
and  who  added  to  the  joy  of  the  occasion  a  few 
Irish  bulls  and  some  choice  wit  and  eloquence. 
If  Col.  Lamed  of  West  Point  gave  us  a  taste  of 
his  quality  in  a  twenty-minute  speech,  wherein 
he  cut  the  introduction,  got  the  range,  and  talked 
right  out  of  his  heart,  and  therefore  talked  well. 
Tf  Dr.  Shaefer,  State  Superintendent  of  Public 
Instruction,  made  next  to  John  Mitchell  the 
best  speech  of  the  evening.  His  theme  was  "The 
Practical  Education,"  and  ye  who  read  THE 
PHILISTINE  know  the  argument.  It  is  not 
covered  by  copyright;  I  did  not  invent  it,  and  of 
course  I  make  no  claim  on  Doctor  Shaefer  for 
royalties.  Shaefer  is  one  of  the  living  educators 
of  his  day — a  man  with  much  good  cheer,  sym 
pathy  plus,  receptive  to  new  ideas,  with  a  mini 
mum  amount  of  pedagogic  frills  and  a  maximum 
quantity  of  commonsense,  a  man  who  knows 
children  because  he  loves  them. 
Now  be  it  known  this  was  a  "dry  banquet," 
and  the  first  and  only  dry  banquet  where  there 
were  over  a  hundred  guests  that  I  ever  attended, 
which  speaks  well  for  me — or  not,  all  according 

to  your  point  of  view.  There  is  an  adage  that  a 

109 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

dry  banquet  is  like  platonic  love,  and  platonic 
love  is  like  playing  poker  with  Confederate 
money.  Let  the  ribald  ones  pass!  Do  they  not 
also  tell  us  that  you  cannot  run  a  first-class  hotel 
without  a  bar  ? 

Rodents !  or  words  to  that  effect. 
I  have  attended  dozens  of  banquets,  but  at  this 
one  of  the  I.  C.  S.  there  was  an  atmosphere,  and 
it  was  not  an  atmosphere  of  budge,  booze  and 
tales  tinged  with  saffron  and  stories  verging  on 
gamboge  &  jt 

The  audience  keys  the  speech  of  the  speaker- 
it  is  all  a  collaboration.  A  Clover  Club  Banquet 
is  a  frumenti  effervescence,  a  maudlin  embrace 
between  Wit  and  the  Widow  Clicquot,  and  the 
Widow,  of  course,  comes  off  victorious,  as 
widows  ever  do. 

But  here  there  was  a  keen,  high,  rarified,  intel 
lectual  atmosphere.  Every  man  who  stood  on 
his  feet  had  to  say  something.  The  breath  of 
Minerva  ruled  the  place,  not  the  fumes  of 
Bacchus.  And  at  the  last  what  finer  joy,  next 
to  putting  salt  on  the  tail  of  an  idea,  than  to 
experience  the  fine  intoxication  that  comes 
from  having  the  idea  served  up  skillfully  on 


no 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

the  oratorical  toast !  ^f  The  audience  keys  the 
atmosphere,  and  if  you  choose  to  say  that  the 
speaker  keys  the  audience,  I  '11  not  quarrel  with 
you  since  every  truth  implies  its  contradiction. 
But  on  this  occasion  the  wit,  wisdom  and 
spiritual  fluidity  of  the  event  was  supplied  by 
Thomas  J.  Foster,  the  country  editor  who 
fifteen  years  ago  conceived  an  Idea. 

BE  PATIENT  WITH  THE  BOYS — You  ARE  DEAL 
ING  WITH  SOUL  STUFF — DESTINY  WAITS  JUST 
AROUND  THE  CORNER. 

How   I   Found   My   Brother 

*^I7  ^OU  see,  it  was  about  like  this:  I  was 
^^  'leven  years  old,  going  on  twelve.  Our 
JL  folks  lived  at  the  village  of  Hudson, 
McLean  County,  ten  miles  from  Bloomirigton, 
which  is  in  the  State  of  Illinois.  My  father  was 
a  doctor,  and  being  a  country  doctor  did  not 
roll  in  wealth  any  to  speak  of.  In  those  days 
every  one  in  Illinois  was  poor,  no  matter  how 
much  land  he  owned.  However,  we  owned  our 
farm,  had  four  horses,  five  cows,  a  dozen  pigs 
and  a  flock  of  hens. 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

There  were  always  vegetables  in  the  cellar, 
smoked  meat  in  the  wood-shed,  and  pickled 
beef  in  the  kitchen.  At  the  back  door  was  a  keg 
of  soft  soap.  In  the  garret  where  I  slept,  in  the 
winter  the  snow  drifted  cheerily  in  through  the 
cracks  and  covered  the  buffalo  robes  that 
covered  me.  But  I  did  n't  lie  awake  thinking 
about  it — country  boys  who  work  all  day  begin 
to  pound  their  ear  as  soon  as  they  hit  the  pillow. 
If  I  was  the  only  boy  and  you  know  what  that  is 
in  a  family  where  there  are  four  big  sisters!  I 
had  to  make  the  garden,  milk  the  cows,  bring 
in  wood  and  churn.  Of  course  there  was  a  lot 
of  fun  about  it  all — more  than  I  knew  of  at  the 
time.  In  the  winter  I  hunted  rabbits  with  an  old 
army  musket  and  brought  home  so  much  bunny 
meat  that  the  whole  family  went  on  a  strike, 
and  declared  I  should  study  my  books  more 
and  not  hunt  rabbits  quite  so  much. 
In  the  spring  and  fall  when  the  prairie  ponds 
were  full  of  water,  the  wild  ducks  on  their  regu 
lar  trips  north  or  south  got  stop-overs  and 
remained  with  us  a  few  days — thousands  of 
them — and  a  few  of  them  neglected  to  go  on. 
Ducks  are  harder  to  kill  than  rabbits.  I  used  to 


112 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

load  the  old  musket  up  so  heavy  that  when  I 
would  fire  it  off,  if  I  did  not  look  out  sharp, 
I  would  get  kicked  end  over  end.  Then  I  would 
get  up  and  look  for  ducks,  and  usually  they 
were  flying  away  on  the  far  and  distant  horizon, 
as  the  poets  say. 

In  winter  I  went  to  school.  We  used  to  play 
"Anteny  Over,"  with  a  yarn  ball.  That  is,  we 
chose  sides;  one  gang  stood  on  one  side  of  the 
school-house  and  the  other  half  on  the  other. 
You  yelled  Anteny  Over  and  threw  the  ball  over 
the  school-house.  The  boy  that  caught  it  yelled 
Anteny  Over,  but  instead  of  throwing  it,  he 
sneaked  around  the  corner  and  soaked  the  first 
fellow  he  saw,  and  usually  the  ball  was  soaked 
in  water,  so  when  you  got  hit  you  knew  it.  Then 
the  fellow  that  was  hit  had  to  go  around  on  the 
other  side.  When  the  bell  rang  the  side  that  had 
the  most  men  was  the  winner. 
Then  we  played  one-old-cat  and  three-cornered 
cat.  Saturdays  there  were  boys  playing  ball  on 
the  prairie  back  of  the  church  all  day,  and  if  I 
could  sneak  away  I  was  usually  one  of  the  ball 
players.  I  was  a  true  Son  of  Swat. 
This  brought  me  many  scoldings  and  a  few 

"3 


HEALTH     AND      WEALTH 

mild  lickings,  because  I  neglected  my  work  jfe 
As  a  ball-player  I  was  a  bird — I  used  to  take  a 
piece  of  a  flat  board  and  when  that  yarn  ball 
came  anywhere  around,  I  gave  it  a  wallop  you 
could  have  heard  a  mile.  We  pitched  under 
hand,  and  I  could  certainly  do  up  the  town  on 
pitching  as  well  as  crossing  'em  out.  I  became 
a  three-cornered-cat  fiend. 
Everything  that  came  on  the  first  bound,  I 
gathered  in;  the  flies  1  caught  in  my  hat.  When 
my  big  sister  played,  she  used  to  catch  'em  in 
her  apron.  Finally,  I  almost  forgot  how  to  curry 
a  horse,  and  the  girls  had  to  milk  the  cows, 
carry  in  wood  and  hunt  for  the  eggs,  because  I 
was  off  playing  ball. 

Now,  one  day  I  saw  in  the  "Weekly  Panta- 
graph,"  that  a  man  calling  himself  the  agent  of 
the  Children's  Aid  Society  of  New  York,  was  to 
be  in  Bloomington  the  next  week  with  twenty- 
five  children,  and  that  respectable  farmers  and 
such  who  wanted  to  adopt  children  should  be 
on  hand  and  make  their  selection. 
I  spelled  out  that  item  four  or  five  times,  and 
then  carried  it  to  my  mother  asking  what  it 

meant.  And  she  explained  to  me  that  these 
114 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

children  were  orphans,  and  there  were  people 
who  had  no  children  of  their  own,  or  not  as 
many  as  they  wanted,  who  adopted  them. 
And  then  a  great  idea  came  to  me — I  needed  a 
brother,  and  here  was  a  chance  to  get  one.  The 
three  brothers  I  once  had  died  while  very  young, 
and  although  I  could  remember  them  but  dimly, 
there  were  three  little  mounds  in  the  graveyard 
that  we  used  to  visit  on  Sunday  afternoons,  that 
kept  their  memory  green. 

When  I  suggested  going  down  to  Bloomington 
and  picking  out  a  brother  for  myself,  my  mother 
tried  to  laugh,  but  I  saw  the  tears  running  down 
her  cheeks,  and  then  she  threw  her  apron  over 
her  head  and  went  out  to  bring  the  clothes  in 
off  the  line. 

The  next  day  I  brought  the  subject  up  at  the 
table.  Everybody  smiled — they  thought  it  wras 
a  fine  joke. 

Father  concluded  that  we  had  all  the  children 
he  could  feed,  but  I  argued  that  I  got  fifty  cents 
a  day  when  they  were  running  the  Brown  corn- 
sheller  for  driving  on  the  horse-power,  and  in 
harvest  time  I  could  get  a  dollar  a  day.  If  we 
had  another  boy,  I  could  work  all  the  time  and 

"5 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

earn  money  and  the  other  boy  could  do  the 
chores.  "And  give  you  time  to  play  ball," 
chimed  in  my  big  sister. 

I  loftily  waived  her  remark,  but  clung  to  the 
argument  that  I  needed  a  brother. 
Sis  felt  a  little  sorry  for  what  she  had  said,  so 
she  came  over  to  my  side  and  suggested  that 
these  orphan  children  were  sent  out  for  a  month 
first,  and  then  adopted  if  all  parties  were  willing. 
"Sent  on  suspicion,"  said  father. 
"It  is  better  than  the  other  way,"  I  argued, 
"because  if  you  don't  like  'em,  you  don't  have 
to  keep  'em,  and  the  other  way  you  can't  send 
'em  back  after  they  have  been  used. " 
"The  garden  work  is  behind,  you  know, "  I  con 
tinued,  "and  I  can  never  do  it  alone." 
There  was  a  little  more  parley  with  instances 
by  father  where  orphan  boys  had  set  fire  to 
haystacks,  turned  the  cows  in  the  corn,  stolen 
chickens,  and  cooked  them  on  wire  fences  by 
making  a  fire  beneath. 

But  Sis  offset  all  this  by  naming  three  adopted 
boys  who  not  only  worked  well,  but  had  joined 
the  Baptist  Church  and  been  baptized  by  cut 
ting  a  hole  in  the  ice  in  the  creek,  only  a  few 

116 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

months  before.  ^[That  settled  it — I  was  given 
permission  to  go  and  pick  out  a  boy.  Father 
and  mother  would  make  no  promises — if  I 
could  get  him  on  a  month's  trial,  all  right. 
And  right  there  I  ceased  all  agitation  and  talked 
of  other  things.  I  was  afraid  the  permission 
would  be  revoked.  Not  a  peep  did  I  give  forth 
on  the  subject  of  brothers.  But  I  thought  about 
it  all  day  and  dreamed  of  it  at  night.  I  wanted 
a  brother  who  could  work,  who  could  fight  and 
who  could  play  ball. 

The  day  arrived  when  the  orphans  were  to  be 
at  the  Ashley  Tavern  in  Bloomington. 
Did  I  say  anything  about  it  ?  Not  I ! 
I  was  up  at  daylight,  without  being  called.  I 
tried  to  eat  breakfast,  but  had  no  appetite.  So 
I  just  made  a  bluff  at  it,  and  then  sauntered  out 
into  the  garden  and  began  to  hoe. 
Soon  father  took  his  saddle-bags  and  went  off 
to  see  patients.  Mother  began  baking.  The  girls 
started  for  school. 

I  ran  to  the  barn,  stood  in  the  manger  and  put 
a  bridle  on  OF  Molly  and  backed  her  out,  first 
fastening  her  colt  in  the  box  stall.  I  climbed  on 

her  bare  back.  Instead  of  taking  the  road  that 

117 


HEALTH      AND    WEALTH 

ran  in  front  of  the  house,  I  cut  across  the  fields 

and  struck  the  creek  road  a  mile  out  of  town  £, 

Then  I  dug  my  heels  into  the  old  mare's  sides 

and  gave  her  the  gad. 

I  rode  the  ten  miles  in  a  little  over  an  hour, 

jumped  off  at  the  court  house,  tied  the  horse 

and  made  for  the  Ashley  Tavern. 

I  knew  what  I  wanted. 

I  walked  into  the  office,  looked  around  and 

asked  for  the  orphans. 

"  Parlor — up-stairs,"  said  the  clerk. 

I  climbed  the  stairs,  two  steps  at  a  time  and 

entered  the  parlor. 

It  was  not  yet  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning,  but 

there  the  children  were — washed,  dressed  and 

seated  all  around  the  walls  of  the  room. 

Several  men  and  women  were  standing  around, 

looking  at  the  children  and  talking.  Two  women 

in  black,  and  a  man  with  long  whiskers  and 

upper  lip  shaved,  seemed  to  be  in  charge  of  the 

orphans  jfc  ^ 

"How  old  are  you  sonny,"  said  an  old  man  to 

me,  patting  me  on  the  head. 

"'Leven,  going  on  twelve,"  I  answered 

"  Can  you  work  ?  " 

118 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

"I  guess  so,"  I  answered.  ^[He  called  his  wife 
over  and  they  both  looked  at  me  earnestly  jfc 
Then  the  old  man  said  to  one  of  the  widow 
women  in  black,  "We  think  we  will  take  this 
one,"  at  the  same  time  giving  me  another  pat 
on  the  head. 

"  I  am  already  took,  you  '11  not  get  me,"  I  roared, 
"I'm  here  to  pick  out  a  brother.  I  want  a  boy 
that  can  work,  and  who  can  play  ball!" 
This  centered  attention  on  me.  Most  everybody 
laughed,  including  several  of  the  orphans.  The 
boys  were  dressed  in  gray  and  the  girls  in  red. 
They  all  seemed  quite  content — not  near  as 
miserable  as  I  thought  children  should  be  who 
had  110  parents. 

I  walked  twice  around  the  room  looking  at 
these  orphans,  as  I  had  looked  at  pigs  at  the 
county  fair. 

None  of  them  seemed  to  answer — all  were  too 
yellow,  and  several  of  them  whispered  together 
and  made  fun  of  rne.  I  was  in  my  bare  feet  and 
they  wore  shoes  and  stockings.  All  at  once  I  saw 
in  the  corner  a  boy  with  tow-head  and  freckles. 
He  had  settled  down  in  the  corner  trying  to  hide. 

He  was  so  homely  he  was  attractive. 

119 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

I  walked  over  to  him,  and  asked,  "Can  you 
work  and  play  ball — I  want  a  brother!" 
I  did  not  say  anything  about  fighting,  for  I  had 
suddenly  noticed  that  he  was  a  hunchback  ^ 
He  just  looked  at  me  and  gulped,  scared  like, 
he  was  that  embarrassed. 

"I  want  a  brother — will  you  come  with  me  and 
be  my  brother  ?"  I  asked. 

I  omitted  the  qualifications  this  time — my  heart 
went  out  to  this  boy — he  seemed  so  scared  and 
half-sick.  I  could  work,  fight  and  play  ball  for 
both  e3&  e£& 

"Is  your  name — your  name  Mudsock?"  he 
whispered  jt  & 

"  No,  I  'm  Bert  Hubbard, "  I  said. 
"Are  you  relation  of  Si  Mudsock  ?  " 
"Nobody  around  us  by  that  name,"  I  answered. 
If  "Then  I  '11  go  with  you  and  be  your  brudder," 
he  answered.  He  stood  up.  He  only  came  to  my 
shoulder. "  I  'm  fifteen,"  he  said  as  if  in  apology. 
"I'm  fifteen — I'm  not  sick — I  had  spinal  com 
plaint — but  I  'm  all  over  it  now.  I  am  strong — 
can  work  and  I  can  play  ball. " 
I  took  him  by  the  hand  and  led  him  to  the 
widow  and  said, "  If  you  please,  Missus,  I  '11  take 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

this  one!"  ^[Then  the  woman  asked  me  who 
I  was,  where  I  came  from,  who  sent  me,  and 
explained  that  if  my  parents  wished  to  adopt  a 
boy,  or  to  take  one  on  probation,  they  must 
come  and  sign  the  papers. 

Just  then  in  walked  Uncle  Elihu  Rogers  ^fc  I 
referred  to  him.  Uncle  Elihu  assured  them  that 
I  was  the  son  of  Doctor  Hubbard  and  that  I 
knew  as  much  as  my  father,  or  thought  I  did. 
All  the  time  I  held  my  boy  tightly  by  the  hand. 
If  It  was  finally  agreed  that  if  Uncle  Elihu  would 
go  out  and  get  Dr.  Crothers,  and  both  of  them 
would  sign  for  the  boy,  I  could  have  him  on  a 
month's  trial,  to  be  adopted  then  by  my  parents, 
if  they  so  desired. 

Dr.  Crothers  came  over,  smiled,  asked  me  a  few 
questions.  He  then  gave  me  and  my  new  brother 
each  ten  cents,  and  signed  the  papers. 
I  walked  out  of  the  parlor  rapidly,  down  the 
stairs  and  over  to  the  court-house,  leading  my 
new-found  brother.  He  carried  a  bundle  tied  up 
in  a  big  red  handkerchief. 

I  unfastened  OP  Molly,  climbed  up  on  the  hitch 
ing  rail,  and  jumped  on  her  back.  Then  I  held 
out  my  hand,  stiffened  my  foot,  and  up  climbed 


121 


HEALTH     AND      WEALTH 

my  brother.  He  was  nimble  and  strong — I  felt 
better  <£,  & 

As  we  jogged  along  I  asked,  "Why  did  you  ask 
me  if  my  name  was  Mudsock  ?  " 
"He 's  them  an  that  had  me  last — 'dopted  nic 
he  lives  near  Peoria.  Is  that  near  here  ?  He  used 
me  to  bat  up  flies — beat  me,  starved  me,  and 
then  when  I  ran  away  he  tried  to  get  me  arrested. 
He  said  I  stole  a  horse ! " 
"Did  you?"  I  asked. 

"Never,  I  just  ran  away  and  stole  rides  on  the 
railroad  clear  back  to  New  York — it  took  me 
six  weeks.  There  they  put  me  in  the  Home  and 
brought  me  out  west  again  to  be  'dopted  ^  I 
do  n't  mind  being  'dopted  by  you.  I  can  work, 
I  can — but  I  want  to  go  to  school  a  little,  to  read 
and  study  and  be  a  man.  I  like  you — but  if  Mud- 
sock  comes  for  me,  what  will  you  do  ?" 
"Kill  him,  "I  answered. 

Mother  was  just  putting  the  dinner  on  when  OP 
Molly,  Brudder  and  I  reached  the  front  gate  & 

THE  month  of  probation  past,  and  father 
and  mother  straightway  adopted  Brudder, 
all  without  any  coercion  from  me.  It  was  very 


122 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

funny — at  first  they  thought  it  a  calamity,  then 
they  got  to  telling  the  neighbors  how  they  sent 
me  after  him. 

The  lad  was  alert,  obedient,  willing.  He  was 
grateful  for  everything;  whereas  I  was  Grab- 
heimer  from  Grabville. 

Again  and  again  my  sisters  would  say  to  me, 
"Now,  why  don't  you  try  to  be  gentlemanly 
like  Brudder,  and  not  hang  your  hat  on  the  floor 
and  talk  back. " 

I  had  intended  to  select  a  boy  who  looked  like 
myself — this  being  the  highest  type  I  could 
imagine.  Instead  I  had  picked  my  opposite.  I 
was  tall,  slender,  and  had  black  hair  and  brown 
eyes.  Brudder  was  short,  and  a  genuine  blond. 
I  was  saucy — he  was  polite.  Instead  of  picking 
out  the  strongest  and  liveliest  boy  I  could  find, 
I  chose  the  smallest,  the  sickliest,  the  homeliest 
one  in  the  bunch.  My  judgment  was  in  the  ditch, 
and  I  was  carried  away  on  the  back  of  sympathy. 
It  was  head  against  heart,  and  heart  made  a 
home  run.  In  spite  of  his  physical  disability,  he 
was  very  strong,  and  he  could  do  fully  as  much 
work  as  I.  In  his  books  he  was  a  bit  deficient, 

but  the  girls  taught  him  evenings,  and  in  long 

123 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

division  I  had  to  call  upon  him  to  help  me  out. 
He  used  to  hold  the  hank  of  yarn  for  mother  to 
wind  and  would  do  this  without  either  snarling 
the  yarn  or  mother's  temper  jt  Once  I  heard 
mother  say  that  Brudder  was  just  like  my 
brother  Charlie  who  died  when  he  was  nine 
years  old  jfc  & 

We  worked  together,  got  jobs  at  the  station 
unloading  lumber,  drove  on  the  horse-power 
and  sold  corn-cobs  to  the  section  men  for  fuel. 
Saturday  afternoons  we  played  ball.  This  was 
Brudder's  passion,  as  well  as  mine.  We  found 
a  big  chunk  of  solid  rubber  on  the  railroad  that 
had  served  its  purpose  as  a  car-spring.  Or  did 
we  work  it  out  of  the  car  with  a  crow-bar  ?  I 
really  cannot  say.  But  anyway,  Brudder  got 
busy  cutting  out  a  solid  rubber  ball  with  his 
knife.  Very  patiently  did  he  work  cutting  and 
paring.  At  last  the  ball  was  done.  Oh,  it  was  a 
daisy !  With  a  round  club  you  could  knock  it  a 
mile.  We  then  quit  playing  three-cornered-cat 
and  Brudder  showed  us  how  to  play  baseball. 
He  sent  away  and  got  the  "Rules."  He  was 
always  sending  for  catalogs  and  sample  copies 

of  magazines.  We  made  him  captain  of  our 
124 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

team,  and  when  the  Bloomington  Giants  came 
up  to  play  us,  we  beat  them  forty-nine  to  twenty- 
three.  We  were  making  plans  to  go  out  as  pro 
fessionals  when  something  terrible  happened. 
It  was  one  Saturday  afternoon.  Brudder  had 
been  with  us  just  six  months.  He  and  I  had  dug 
potatoes  hard  all  the  morning,  and  mother  had 
told  us  we  could  have  the  entire  afternoon.  We 
were  playing  the  "Invincibles"  from  the 
Normal  ^  ^t 

Brudder  was  pitching,  and  the  way  he  sent  that 
solid  rubber  spheroid  over  the  plate  and  around 
the  plate  was  marvelous.  He  could  throw  a 
curve  that  circled  the  batter's  neck — or  nearly 
so.  The  Invincibles  were  n't  in  it.  They  had  a 
cloth  ball  with  a  piece  of  rubber  in  the  center, 
but  we  kicked  on  this  and  insisted  on  our  own 
or.  nothing.  Things  were  coming  our  way  jt  I 
was  catching.  The  way  I  picked  that  ball  right 
off  the  wood  was  marvelous. 
All  at  once  I  saw  a  strange  man  coming  across 
the  diamond  with  a  black-snake  whip  in  his 
hand.  He  was  big  and  had  red  bushy  whiskers. 
Brudder  saw  him  and  turned  pale — he  was  so 
scared  that  he  just  held  the  ball  in  his  hand  and 

125 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

stood  first  on  one  foot,  then  on  the  other.  I  was 
paralyzed  jt  jfc 

The  big  man  in  his  ragged,  dusty  clothes  with 
his  black-snake  whip  was  walking  right  toward 
Brudder,  yelling,  "So  I've  found  you  at  last— 
I've  found  you  at  last!" 

Brudder  ran  out  across  the  diamond  toward 
the  field.  The  man  followed  after  him.  Suddenly 
Brudder  stopped — his  hand  with  the  solid  rub 
ber  ball  shot  up,  over,  around,  his  knee  came 
up  to  his  chin — and  the  ball  shot  forward ! 
It  caught  the  man  square  on  the  mouth  jt  He 
dropped  the  whip,  threw  up  his  hands,  reeled, 
staggered  and  fell  on  his  back,  the  blood  stream 
ing  from  his  nose  and  mouth. 
The  crowd  was  around  him  in  a  minute.  We 
thought  he  was  dead. 

Father  was  sent  for  and  came  with  his  case  of 
instruments  ready  to  cut  off  a  leg,  but  before  he 
arrived  some  one  had  thrown  a  bucket  of  water 
in  the  man's  face.  By  this  time  he  was  sitting 
up.  He  had  spit  out  a  mouthful  of  teeth  and 
was  trying  to  talk,  asking  for  that  dam  boy 
who  had  tried  to  murder  him,  when  he  had  n't 

done  nothing  to  nobody. 
126 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

I  began  looking  around  for  Brudder.  He  could 
not  be  found.  No  one  had  seen  him.  We  searched 
the  house  and  the  barn.  We  looked  in  the  wheat 
bin  and  under  the  hay.  Then  we  discovered  that 
our  three-year-old  bay  colt  was  gone.  A  scrap 
of  paper  in  the  oats  measure  told  the  tale.  On  it 
was  scrawled,  "Dear  Bert:  If  I  killed  Mudsock 
they  will  hang  me.  If  I  did  n't  kill  him  he  will 
kill  me,  for  he  says  I  am  his.  I  have  to  leave  you. 
When  I  score  I  '11  pay  for  the  colt.  I  am  not  bad — 
God  has  forgotten  me,  that  is  all  jfc  Brudder." 
It  was  a  lonely  household  after  Brudder  had 
gone.  We  thought  he  would  be  back  in  a  few 
days.  We  put  a  notice  in  the  "Weekly  Panta- 
graph,"  but  no  one  had  seen  my  brother.  One 
of  our  neighbors  once  said  to  mother  at  church, 
—"So  he  stole  your  horse,  did  he— they  are  all 
alike!"  And  mother  said  something  to  the  man 
he  did  not  soon  forget.  Sunday  afternoons  we 
still  went  up  to  the  graveyard,  and  I  wondered 
why  there  were  not  four  mounds  instead  of  three. 
The  graves  kind  of  seemed  very  near,  and  dear 
and  close. 
Four  years  passed,  and  I  secured  a  job  in 

Chicago.  I  was  as  big  as  a  man  and  felt  as 

127 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

big  as  one,  even  if  I  was  only  sixteen  years 
old.  I  was  down  home  on  a  visit  and  a  letter 
came.  I  hold  the  letter  nowT  in  my  hand  as  I 
write.  It  is  yellow  and  soiled,  but  still  is  legible. 
Here  is  what  it  says:  Dear  Bert:  "Here  is  a 
draft  for  two  hundred  dollars  to  pay  for  the 
colt.  Give  it  to  your  father  with  my  love.  The 
horse  was  worth  the  money  to  me,  but  I  had 
to  sell  him.  I  am  secretary  to  the  Manager  of 
the  White  Sox.  I  get  twenty-five  dollars  a  week. 
I  play  shortstop.  I  got  a  walk  to  first,  then  I  stole 
second,  and  a  small  swat  put  me  on  third,  and 
I'll  not  die  here.  When  I  score  you  will  hear 
from  me.  The  Great  Umpire,  I  guess,  has  n't 
entirely  forgotten  me. 

Yours  truly, 

Brudder. " 

I  am  fifty  years  old.  Brudder  is  fifty-three.  I 
saw  him  last  week  when  I  lectured  at  the  Acad 
emy  of  Music  in  Philadelphia.  He  was  right  in 
the  front  row,  "rooting,"  as  he  expressed  it 
when  he  came  up  on  the  stage  after  the  speil. 
If  "You  look  as  if  the  Great  Umpire  was  on 
your  side,"  I  said,  ^f  "He  is — I  am  not  rich — but 

I  have  all  I  need — I  get  three  thousand  dollars  a 
128 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

year.  Then  I  have  my  daughter,  and  any  man 
with  such  a  daughter  is  rich.  You  know  I  am 
superintendent  for  the  A.  J.  Reach  Co.,  the 
folks  who  make  the  baseballs. " 
Brudder  is  a  trifle  bald,  but  his  face  is  the  same 
that  I  saw  at  the  Ashley  Tavern,  only  without 
the  pallor.  Men  who  love  baseball  seem  to  keep 
young,  they  are  always  boys.  With  Brudder 
was  his  grown-up  daughter,  a  beautiful  girl  a 
head  taller  than  he.  She  called  me  Uncle. 

SWOLLEN  FORTUNES  ARE  NOT  so  DANGEROUS 
As  A  SWOLLEN    NAVY 

A     Peace     Precedent 

THE  coast  line  between  Canada  and  the 
United  States,  from  the  St.  Lawrence 
River  to  Lake  Superior,  is  about  two 
thousand  miles. 

In  the  year  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Twelve, 
there  were  forty-six  forts,  big  and  little,  on  the 
United  States  side,  and  about  the  same  number 
frowned  at  us  from  Canada. 
At  Fort  Niagara  alone  there  were  at  one  time 

six  thousand  troops.  Altogether  we  had  on  the 

129 


HEALTH     AND      WEALTH 

Great  Lakes  over  a  hundred  craft  devoted  to 
the  art  of  fighting — this  in  the  interest  of  peace. 
H  In  one  little  battle  we  had  with  our  British 
cousins,  on  Lake  Erie,  Commodore  Perry,  a 
rash  youth  of  twenty-seven,  captured  six  British 
ships  and  killed  three  hundred  men.  A  little 
before  this  the  British  destroyed  ten  ships  for 
us  and  killed  two  hundred  Americans. 
After  the  War  of  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Twelve 
was  ended  and  peace  was  declared,  both  sides 
got  busy,  very  busy,  strengthening  the  forts  and 
building  war  ships. 

At  Watertown,  Conneaut,  Erie,  Port  Huron, 
Cleveland  and  Detroit  were  shipyards  where 
hundreds  of  men  were  working  night  and  day 
building  war  ships.  Not  that  war  was  imminent 
but  the  statesmen  of  the  time  said  there  was 
nothing  like  "preparedness. "  In  Canada  things 
were  much  the  same,  and  there  were  threats 
that  Perry's  famous  message,  "We  have  met 
the  enemy  and  they  are  ours,"  would  soon  be 
reversed  ^  *£* 

Suddenly,  but  very  quietly,  two  men  in  Wash 
ington  got  together  and  made  an  agreement. 

One  man  was  acting  Secretary  of  State, Richard 
130 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

Rush  of  Philadelphia.  The  other  was  Charles 
Bagot,  Minister  to  the  United  States  from  Eng 
land  jt  Rush  was  of  Quaker  parentage,  and 
naturally,  was  opposed  to  the  business  of  war. 
If  Bagot  had  seen  enough  of  fighting  to  know  it 
was  neither  glorious  nor  amusing. 
Rush  wrote  out  a  memorandum  of  agreement 
which  he  headed  AN  ARRANGEMENT. 
The  document  is  written  on  one  side  of  a  single 
sheet  of  paper  and  is  dated  April  Twenty-eight, 
Eighteen  Hundred  and  Seventeen.  Here  is  a 
copy: 

"  1. — The  Naval  Forces  henceforth  to  be  main 
tained  upon  the  Great  Lakes  shall  be  confined 
to  the  following  vessels  on  each  side : 
"2. — On  Lake  Ontario  one  vessel,  not  to  exceed 
one  hundred  tons  burden,  carrying  not  more 
than  twenty  men  and  one  eighteen  -  pound 
cannon  jfc  jt 

"3. — On  the  Upper  Lakes  two  vessels,  of  same 
burden,  and  armed  in  a  like  way. 
"4. — On  Lake  Champlain  one  vessel  of  like 
size  and  armament. 

"5. — All  other  armed  vessels  to  be  at  once  dis 
mantled,  and  no  other  vessel  of  war  shall  be 

131 


HEAL  TH     AND     WEA  L  T  H 

built  or  armed  along  the  St.  Lawrence  River 
or  on  the  Great  Lakes. " 

This  agreement  has  been  religiously  kept  for 
ninety-one  years.  Its  effect  was  to  stop  work  at 
once  on  the  fortifications,  and  cause  disarma 
ment  along  the  Great  Lakes. 
So  far  as  we  know  the  agreement  will  continue 
for  all  time.  Both  parties  are  satisfied,  and  in 
fact,  so  naturally  has  it  been  accepted,  very  few 
people  know  of  its  existence. 
Here  is  an  example  that  our  friends  at  The 
Hague  might  well  emphasize.  If  those  forts  on 
the  frontier  had  been  maintained,  and  had  the 
ships  of  war  continued  to  sail  up  and  down,  it 
would  have  been  a  positive  miracle  if  there  had 
not  been  fighting. 

Probably  they  would  have  forced  us  into  a  war 
with  England  before  this.  We  have  had  several 
disputes  with  Canada  when  it  would  have  been 
very  easy  to  open  hostilities  if  the  tools  had  been 
handy.  Men  who  tote  pistols  find  reasons  for 
using  them,  and  the  nations  that  have  big 
armies  will  test  their  use  when  excuse  offers. 


132 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

THE  civilized  earth  is  practically  parceled 
out  among  nine  Great  Nations.  These 
nations  are  The  United  States  of  America, 
England,  Germany,  France,  Russia,  Italy, 
Austria,  Spain  and  Turkey. 
Each  of  these  nations  keeps  a  large  standing 
army.  The  United  States  has  the  smallest  army 
and  Russia  the  largest.  We  also  have  more  food 
and  Russia  the  least.  Twice  in  ten  years  we  have 
fed  her. 

In  round  numbers  these  nine  great  powers  take 
and  constantly  keep  four  million  men  from 
useful  production.  Including  those  who  are 
working  in  shops  and  factories,  employed  in 
the  creation  of  army  supplies  there  are  five  mill 
ion  people,  of  the  very  flower  and  pick  of  the 
world,  engaged  in  military  duty. 
Let  the  further  fact  be  noted  that  where  a  man 
is  taken  from  useful  production,  some  one  has 
to  work  to  support  him. 

The  worst  of  war  or  war  service  is  that  the 
soldier  is  a  ruined  man.  William  T.  Stead  says, 
"Four  out  of  five  of  all  English  soldiers  who 
serve  for  two  years  or  more  are  tainted  by 
venereal  disease. " 

133 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

To  a  great  degree  population  is  reproduced  by 
the  weak,  the  old  and  the  unfittest. 
The  most  awful  feature  of  war  is  not  the  loss 
of  life  on  the  field  of  battle  or  death  in  the 
hospitals,  but  it  is  that  the  men  who  return, 
come  back  demoralized  by  disease  and  trans 
mit  disease  and  the  tendencies  of  degeneration 
to  the  unborn. 

Fear,  greed  and  vanity  are  the  three  things 
which  stand  in  the  way  of  disarmament.  But 
the  thinking  people  of  the  world  are  beginning 
to  see  that  the  perpetuity  of  the  race  demands 
the  abolition  of  war. 

If  individuals  cannot  agree  we  do  not  allow 
them  to  get  out  in  the  street  and  battle  with 
each  other. 

That  might  prove  which  was  the  stronger  man 
but  it  would  not  prove  who  was  right  in  the 
question  at  issue.  Justice  is  not  to  be  reached 
through  violence. 

We  elect  supervisors  to  look  after  the  affairs  of 
each  county,  and  if  counties  disagree  they  find 
their  remedy  in  the  state  courts. 
If  states  disagree  they  carry  the  case  to  the 

United  States  Court. 
134 


HEALTH     AND      WEALTH 

But  if  countries  disagree  we  return  to  violence 
and  straightway  destroy  life  and  property  in 
order  that  equity  may  reign. 
Among  all  savage  tribes  there  is  a  goodly  degree 
of  consideration  for  the  individual  members  of 
the  tribe,  a  certain  standard  of  justice  and 
ethics.  The  American  Indians  do  not  maltreat 
their  women,  nor  abuse  their  children.  In  fact 
corporal  punishment  is  looked  upon  with  great 
disfavor.  Savages  have  a  Golden  Rule,  too  ^t 
But  it  applies  only  to  members  of  the  family  or 
tribe,  just  as  our  Golden  Rule  does  not  apply  to 
outside  nations.  My  plea  is  for  a  Golden  Rule 
that  will  apply  not  only  to  our  own  country,  not 
only  to  Christendom,  but  to  all  the  world. 
The  absurdity  of  avowed  violence  between 
nations  that  clamorously  proclaim  themselves 
"Christians"  is  too  evident  to  discuss. 
If  two  countries  can  make  an  "arrangement" 
limiting  the  matter  of  armament  and  this 
arrangement  holds  for  a  hundred  years,  cannot 
nine  countries  do  the  same  ?  All  that  is  then 
needed  is  a  few  soldiers  to  do  police  duty. 
Nations  cannot  afford  to  be  savages  any  more 
than  individuals. 

135 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

THE    GUINEA    FEATHER    SHOULD    BE    THE 
NATIONAL  FLOWER 

The    Guinea    Hens 

ABOUT  a  year  ago  I  reprinted  in  these 
columns  a  paragraph  from  the  London 
Pall  Mall  Gazette,  as  follows :  "  You  can 
join  the  American  Academy  of  Immortals  on 
payment  of  two  guineas.  This  guarantees  your 
immortality  for  ninety-nine  years  with  privilege 
of  renewal.  Our  Yankee  brothers  are  a  strange 
and  gullible  people. "  Well,  a  fewT  weeks  later  a 
man  from  Kalamazoo  wrote  me  thus:  "I  want 
you  to  enroll  my  name  in  the  American  Acad 
emy  of  Immortals  and  in  payment  I  send  you 
two  guineas. " 

There  was  no  money  in  the  letter,  but  that  after 
noon  a  box  came  by  express  containing  two 
guinea  hens. 

Would  n't  that  give  you  cold  feet  ? 
One  of  the  guinea  hens  was  a  rooster. 
But  which  one  I  didn't  know,  excepting  that 
one  was  a  bit  more  pompous  than  the  other  and 
had  more  to  say.  And  this,  I  assumed,  was  Mr. 

Guineahen  £>  £> 
136 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

The  guinea  pig  isn't  a  pig  and  doesn't  come 
from  Guinea. 

The  guinea  fowl  does — being  a  partially  domes 
ticated  partridge,  prairie-chicken  or  sage-hen 
of  the  Guinea  jungle. 

Wild  birds  and  wild  animals  mate — domesti 
cate  them  and  they  become  promiscuous.  I  do 
not  know  why  this  is,  but  it  does  seeni  as  if 
civilization  were  immoral.  Guineas  mate  and 
are  true  and  loyal  until  death  do  them  part  ^ 
These  two  guineas  the  Michigan  man  sent  me 
wore  tailor-made  suits  of  faultless  fit. 
I  sent  the  guineas  up  to  the  Roycroft  farm  so  to 
keep  the  hawks  away. 

When  a  guinea  sees  a  hawk  or  any  big  bird 
flying  around,  he  gives  the  alarm,  and  all  the 
fowls  but  the  guineas  scoot  for  cover  Jt,  The 
guinea  just  flies  up  on  the  gate  and  shoots  forth 
a  torrent  of  Billingsgate  defiance.  No  bird  that 
wears  feathers  has  a  vocabulary  equal  to  the 
guinea — it  is  so  profane  that  it  is  unprintable. 
Epithet,  ridicule,  sarcasm  and  cuss-words  are 
sent  forth  in  rapid  fire.  When  a  guinea  is  a  little 
excited  you  can  hear  him  a  mile.  As  before 
intimated  it  is  Mr.  Guineahen  who  makes  most 

137 


HEALTH     AND      WEALTH 

of  the  noise,  but  his  wife  is  a  good  imitator,  and 
she  always  echoes  the  sentiments  of  her  liege — 
political,  social,  religious.  On  the  subject  of 
hawks,  weasels,  skunks  and  strange  cats,  old 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Guinea  are  absolutely  one.  On 
non-essentials  they  occasionally  differ,  and 
exhibit  these  differences  as  to  what  constitutes 
wit  by  many  interesting  little  physical  culture 
exhibitions  jfc  jt 
In  other  words,  they  fight. 
But  with  guineas  a  foreign  disturbance  always 
makes  peace  at  home. 

The  guinea  has  surpassed  man  in  this — he  has 
abolished  fear.  He  sounds  warning  notes,  but 
as  for  himself,  he  resembles  Fuzzy  Wuzzy,  his 
former  owner,  and  doesn't  give  a  dam. 
Mr.  Guinea  is  boss  of  the  barn-yard.  Even  a 
game  bird  considers  discretion  the  better  part 
of  valor.  A  guinea  will  tackle  an  English  bull 
dog.  If  the  dog  knew  his  power  he  might  win, 
or  at  least  get  a  slice  of  the  gate  receipts,  but 
when  a  guinea  begins  to  say  things  at  a  bull 
dog — or  any  dog  for  that  matter — that  dog 
stipulates  all  the  facts  concerning  his  pedigree 

to  be  as  stated,  and  hikes. 
138 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

About  June  one  of  our  guineas  disappeared. 
The  other  one  used  to  come  around,  lonesome 
like,  just  a-wearying  for  his  mate.  He  would  fly 
up  on  the  ridge  of  the  barn  and  call  and  call. 
We  felt  awful  sorry  for  him.  We  thought  his 
mate  must  have  been  killed  or  stolen. 
But  one  day,  would  you  believe  it,  I  saw  those 
two  guineas  out  in  the  stubble,  a  half  mile  from 
the  barn.  They  were  cooing  away,  chuckling, 
clucking  and  seemingly  polishing  up  their 
vocabularies. 

I  was  that  rejoiced  that  I  went  right  out  to  see 
them.  As  I  approached  I  saw  a  brown  moving 
mass  close  to  the  ground  all  around  them. 
This  mass  was  baby  guinea  hens.  There  were 
four  thousand  of  them ! 

As  I  approached,  Mr.  Guineahen  gave  a  cluck 
and  yelled,  "Low  bridge!"  and  the  little  ones 
disappeared  as  if  my  old  friend  Kellar  were  in 
charge  of  the  show. 

I  stood  still  and  in  about  five  minutes  Mr. 
Guineahen  gave  another  Number  Six  cluck  and 
shouted,  "All  safe — let  her  go ! "  and  the  ground 
was  alive  with  the  guinea  chicks. 
They  were  little  brown,  fluffy  things  about  as 

139 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

big  as  what  the  girls  call  "a  spool  of  cotton," 
the  kind  that  used  to  cost  us  five  cents,  but 
which  now  is  six. 

I  watched  them  for  an  hour.  Mr.  Guineahen 
kept  circling  round  and  round  the  brood  talking 
in  a  monotone  to  himself.  I  never  heard  such 
boasting  and  bragging!  He  scouted  race  suicide 
and  flouted  Malthus. 

"What  this  country  needs  is  more  guineas," 
he  declared  in  a  quiet  cackle.  All  the  time  he 
watched  the  sky  for  hawks,  and  hunted  for  seeds 
and  bugs,  and  these  he  passed  right  over  to  his 
wife  and  family. 

He  was  the  busiest  and  happiest  bird  I  ever 
saw.  Toward  sundown  he  led  his  picnic  party 
over  to  the  bushes,  and  I  saw  Mr.  Guineahen 
sit  down  close  to  his  mate  and  the  little  ones 
nestle  under  them  for  warmth  and  shelter.  We 
read  about  how  two  thousand  years  ago  "a  hen 
spreadeth  her  wings  and  gathereth  her  young. " 
But  in  this  brooding  business  Mr.  Guinea  is 
just  as  clever  and  reliable  as  Mrs.  Guinea,  and 
the  little  ones  make  no  distinction. 
It  is  a  wise  guinea  chick  that  knows  its  own 

mother  jt  jt 
140 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

It  must  have  been  a  month  before  I  saw  our 
guineas  again.  This  time  they  came  right  into 
the  barn-yard — the  father  and  mother,  and  the 
eighteen  little  ones  with  red  feet  and  bills. They 
were  about  as  big  as  Indiana  quails.  All  were 
exactly  alike,  very  well  disciplined;  they  moved 
in  a  solid  flock. 

Mr.  Guinea  fluttered  about,  circled  his  family 
and  called  loudly  for  cracked  corn  and  wheat. 
Tf  We  made  haste  to  fill  the  order,  and  woe 
betide  the  Plymouth  Rock  that  dare  come  near 
until  those  twenty  guineas  had  enough. 
Having  eaten,  the  old  ones  flew  up  on  the  fence 
— a  five-board  affair,  horse  high,  pig  tight  and 
bull  strong. 

The  old  guineas  walked  along  on  the  top  board 
and  the  little  ones,  one  at  a  time,  taclded  the 
lower  board,  which  was  about  a  foot  from  the 
ground  ^  £, 

The  second  night  the  little  ones  tried  the  second 
board  and  they  spread  out  in  a  straight  line, 
eighteen  strong,  with  red  beaks  all  pointed  one 
way  e2*  «# 
The  third  day  they  tried  the  third  rail,  and  at 

the  end  of  the  week  they  had  all  conquered  the 

141 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 


top  board.  ^fA  week  later  I  saw  the  whole 
bunch  sitting  right  on  the  ridge  of  the  barn, 
singing  out  of  tune  in  a  discordant  chorus,  but 
very  happy.  Every  night  at  sunset  they  sat  on  the 
ridge-pole  and  sang  vespers.  In  the  morning  they 
did  their  matins  from  their  roost  in  the  trees. 
Tf  Last  night  I  was  awakened  about  two  o'clock 
by  the  guineas  —  they  were  all  singing,  calling 
and  shouting  at  once.  I  was  wondering  what  it 
was  all  about  when  I  heard  Ali  B  aba's  voice  in 
a  loud  whisper,  "  Git  up  quick  —  don't  you  hear 
the  guineas,  they  are  yelling  for  god-sake  !  Some 
thing  is  wrong!" 

I  slid  out  of  bed,  jumped  into  my  trousers,  and 
got  out  of  doors.  It  was  very  dark. 
"The  trouble  is  in  the  chicken  house,  I  reckon  !  " 
said  Baba  ^t  We  made  for  the  poultry  house. 
As  we  approached  I  saw  the  door  was  open.  A 
man  sprang  out  and  ran  past  me.  I  made  a  grab 
for  him,  but  missed.  Baba  and  I  both  dashed 
after  him;  we  might  have  captured  him,  if  Ali 
hadn't  caught  the  clothes  line  under  his  chin 
and  been  sent  to  grass  ^t  As  he  went  down  he 
said  something  almost  as  bad  as  that  which  the 

guineas  were  saying  from  the  treetops. 
142 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

The  dark  figure  we  were  following  tumbled  over 
the  fence  and  disappeared  in  the  corn. 
And  all  the  time  the  guineas  shouted. 
We  got  a  lantern,  and  found  a  bag  full  of  some 
thing;  I  cut  the  string  and  six  of  my  best  Ply 
mouth  Rocks  flew  out  of  that  bag,  which  the 
Mudsock  had  gotten  ready  to  carry  away. 
We  went  out  under  the  trees  where  the  guineas 
were  roosting  and  I  heard  Mr.  Guinea  shout — 
"All  safe — everybody  to  bed — let  'er  go!" 
The  discord  ceased.  And  all  around  was  the 
great,  dark,  quiet,  all-enfolding  night,  the  silence 
broken  only  by  the  gentle  chirrup  of  the  crickets. 

You  CAN  SEND  A  BOY  TO  COLLEGE  BUT  You 
CANNOT  MAKE  HIM  THINK 

Anent  University  Training 

^"•^HE  Middle  West,  with  its  semi-pioneer 

times,  supplied  exactly  the  right  envi- 

JL     ronment  for  the  evolution  of  a  very 

strong  type  of  man. 

There  was  toil,  hardship,  difficulty,  with  a  strict 

necessity  for  economy  of  time  and  materials: 

143 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

and  there  was  also  encouragement  and  a  rich 
reward  for  the  men  who  would  work.  It  was  an 
atmosphere  of  effort,  invention,  adjustment- 
readjustment. 

Paul  Morton,  man  of  action  and  man  of  power, 
brought  up  in  Nebraska,  and  graduating  at  the 
University  of  Hard  Knocks,  is  as  good  a  speci 
men  of  the  new  genus,  as  I  can  now  recall.  He 
has  health,  enthusiasm,  courage,  and  the  fine 
fusing  and  mixing  qualities  that  mark  him  as 
a  man  among  men.  Difficulty  does  not  daunt 
him,  nor  is  he  appalled  when  some  one  says, 
"This  has  never  been  done  before!"  His  busi 
ness,  like  the  true  railroad  man  that  he  is,  has 
been  to  do  that  one  thing — the  thing  that  had 
never  been  done  before. 

Of  all  men,  the  builder  and  organizer  of  rail 
roads,  must  be  a  man  who  can  abandon  a  good 
plan  for  a  better  one.  A  good  railroad  manager 
throws  an  engine  on  the  scrap-heap  every 
morning  before  breakfast.  Appliances  are  no 
sooner  invented  arid  tried  before  they  must  be 
replaced  by  better  ones.  And  so  the  railroad 
builder  must  be  a  man  of  great  fluidity  of  spirit; 

quick  to  see  a   betterment,   and  firm   in  his 
144 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

decision  to  utilize  it.  Moreover,  he  must  know 
humanity — the  needs  of  the  public — something 
of  every  business — and  season  all  of  his  work 
with  courtesy  and  enough  of  beauty  to  make 
it  acceptable. 

And  this  is  Paul  Morton!  Going  into  the  Bur 
lington  &  Missouri  employ  as  errand  boy  at 
fifteen;  rising  in  a  year  to  clerkship;  next  head- 
clerk  of  his  office;  private  secretary  to  a  Divison 
Superintendent;  Assistant  General  Freight 
Agent;  General  Passenger  Agent;  Traffic  Man 
ager;  Second- Vice-President  and  practically 
manager  of  one  of  the  greatest  railroad  systems 
in  the  world.  A  member  of  President  Roosevelt's 
Cabinet  «jfc  jfc 

He  was  right  in  line  for  the  presidency  of  the 
Santa  Fe,  and  would  have  landed  the  office, 
had  he  not  chosen  to  take  control  of  a  propo 
sition  that  offered  bigger  difficulties. 
So  much  for  Paul  Morton.  And  now  behold  this 
man,  strong  as  he  is,  dodging  behind  a  super 
stition,  unable  to  face  a  popular  fallacy,  side 
stepping  a  pedagogic  bugaboo,  hugging  the 
ropes,  and  crying  for  quarter. 

"What  do  you  think  of  college  education?" 

145 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

asked  an  editor  of  Paul  Morton.  And  Paul 
Morton  ducks,  courtesies  and  with  a  finger  in 
his  mouth,  says,  "It  is  the  regret  of  my  life  that 
I  did  not  go  to  college!" 

Fie  upon  you,  Paul  Morton,  why  didn't  you 
say,  "Polly  wants  a  cracker,"  or  something 
equally  startling  and  original  ?  You  know  per 
fectly  well,  Paul,  that  your  going  into  that  office 
as  an  errand  boy,  was  exactly  the  start  in  life 
that  your  needs  required.  You  know,  too,  that 
you  have  all  the  education  you  can  carry — all 
you  can  possibly  use  in  your  business. 
Why  twitter  twaddle  and  sputter  the  trite  ?Why 
not  say  that  college  education  is  good  for  those 
who  need  it,  and  let  it  go  at  that ! 
Or  say, — I  see — when  you  expressed  regret  that 
you  had  not  gone  to  college  and  been  landed 
in  a  railroad  office  at  twenty-two,  too  proud  to 
scrub,  too  smart  to  hustle,  and  too  old  to  quickly 
adapt  yourself  to  the  letter  file,  you  were  pass 
ing  us  out  a  subtle  one,  soaked  in  tincture  of 
iron— I  see ! 


Wit 


146 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

JUST  AS  LONG  AS  THE  STATE  SETS  AN  EXAMPLE 
OF  KILLING  ITS  ENEMIES,  INDIVIDUALS  WILL 
OCCASIONALLY  KILL  THEIRS.' 

The    Death    Penalty 

AMONG  the  pleasant  duties  of  the  Presi 
dent  of  France  is  that  of  signing  all 
death  warrants  issued  in  the  Republic. 
This  is  well.  ^President  Fallieres  says,  how 
ever,  that  there  should  be  a  slight  change  in  the 
arrangement,  to-wit :  The  judge  who  sentences 
the  man  to  die,  should  also  act  as  his  execu 
tioner.  ^[  President  Fallieres  knows  full  well  that 
if  this  were  the  case  it  would  do  awaj  with 
legalized  homicide.  He  says,  "I  will  not  ask 
another  man  to  do  that  which  I  myself  am 
unwilling  to  do.  I  will  do  no  murder — even  for 
the  State." 

Therefore,  President  Fallieres  is  commuting 
all  death  penalties  to  life  imprisonment,  and 
where  there  is  a  ghost  of  doubt  about  the  man's 
guilt,  he  pardons  him.  He  says,  "France  must 
learn  to  take  care  of  her  criminals  without  kill 
ing  them.  It's  a  poor  use  to  make  of  a  man — to 

147 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

take  his  life — it  is  an  acknowledgment  of  our 
inefficiency.  Tf  Even  a  life  sentence  should  hold 
out  to  the  man  the  promise  that  twenty  years  of 
good  behavior  and  useful  work  will  make  him 
free.  Penology  must  be  made  a  science  to  the 
end  that  when  we  imprison  a  man  we  do  it  for 
his  own  good,  with  the  intent  of  turning  out  a 
better  man  than  we  took  in.  ^f  Just  as  long  as 
the  State  sets  an  example  of  killing  its  enemies, 
individuals  will  occasionally  kill  theirs. 
Two  hundred  years  ago  when  England  had 
forty-six  offenses  punishable  by  death  there  was 
very  much  more  crime  than  now.  Crime  has 
decreased  as  laws  have  become  more  humane. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  criminal  class  jfi 
Murder  exists  first  in  the  heart;  and  it  often 
exists  in  the  hearts  of  very  good  people.  When 
the  State  ceases  to  breed  murder  in  the  minds 
of  her  citizens,  they  will  cease  not  only  the  kill 
ing  of  each  other,  but  the  desire  to  kill. 
Judicial  murders  are  worse  than  those  done  in 
passion — they  are  so  atrociously  premeditated, 
so  deliberately  planned.  No  excuse  can  be  made 
for  them,  beyond  precedent. 

The  sentiments  of  the  people  are  opposed  to 

148 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

this  legal  killing  business,  and  this  is  why  so 
many  murder  trials  turn  themselves  into  a  farce. 
When  there  is  to  be  an  electrocution  everybody 
tries  to  get  out  of  the  job,  and  the  deadly  current 
is  always  turned  on  by  a  man  at  a  distance  from 
the  scene,  who  salves  his  conscience  by  pretend 
ing  to  think  he  is  turning  on  the  lights,  and  in 
many  cases  the  executioner  is  a  convict,  work 
ing  under  orders. 

President  Fallieres'  refusal  to  either  act  as  an 
executioner,  or  to  order  others  to  take  human 
life,  is  a  manifestation  of  the  Better  Spirit  of  the 


Now  let  enlightened  America  by  her  judges  and 
governors  do  the  same.  Our  President  and  every 
Governor  of  every  state  is  a  negative  party  to 
these  judicial  killings.  They  know  what  is  being 
done  and  by  lifting  a  finger  they  can  stop  it,just 
as  President  Fallieres  h  is  done  &  Let  them 
commute  every  death  sentence  to  imprison 
ment  for  life,  all  without  argument  or  question 
and  they  will  thereby  express  the  Spirit  of  the 
Times,  and  Father  Antic,  the  Law,  who  always 
lags  behind,  will  manicure  his  claws. 

THOU  SHALT  NOT  KILL! 

149 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

POISE  is  THE  STRENGTH  OF  BODY  AND 
STRENGTH  OF  MIND  TO  CONTROL  YOUR 
SYMPATHY  AND  YOUR  KNOWLEDGE. 

The  Ability  To  Say  No 

NATURE  makes  the  crab-apple,  but 
without  man's  help  she  could  never 
evolve  the  pippin. 

Nature  makes  the  man,  but  unless  the  man 
takes  charge  of  himself,  he  will  never  evolve 
into  a  Master.  He  will  remain  a  crab-apple  man. 
e^t  So  nature  requires  men  to  co-operate  with 
her.  And  of  course  in  this  statement  I  fully 
admit  that  man  is  but  a  higher  manifestation 
of  Nature. 

Nature  knows  nothing  of  time — time  is  for 
men.  And  the  fleeting  quality  of  time  is  what 
makes  it  so  valuable  to  us.  If  life  were  without 
limit,  we  would  do  nothing.  Life  without  death 
would  be  appalling.  It  would  be  a  day  without 
end — a  day  with  no  night  of  rest  jfc  Death  is 
change — and  death  is  a  manifestation  of  life. 
^[  We  are  allowed  to  live  during  good  behavior, 
and  this  is  what  leads  men  toward  truth,  jus 
tice  and  beauty,  for  these  things  mean  an 
150 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

extension  of  time,  and  happiness  instead  of 
misery  jt  jfc 

We  work  because  life  is  short,  and  through 
this  work  we  evolve.  The  Master  is  a  man  who 
has  worked  wisely  and  intelligently,  and 
through  habit  has  come  to  believe  in  himself. 
^f  Men  are  strong  just  in  proportion  as  they 
have  the  ability  to  say  NO,  and  stand  by  it. 
Look  back  on  your  own  life — what  was  it  that 
caused  you  the  most  worry,  wear,  vexation, 
loss  and  pain  ?  Was  n't  it  because  you  failed 
to  say  no  at  certain  times  and  stick  to  it  ? 
This  vice  of  the  inability  to  say  NO  comes 
from  lack  of  confidence  in  yourself. 
You  think  too  much  of  the  opinions  of  other 
people  and  not  enough  of  your  own.  "Put  your 
name  right  here — it  is  only  a  matter  of  form, 
you  know — just  between  friends." 
And  you  sign  your  name.  The  years  go  by  and 
there  comes  a  time  when  you  pay  for  your 
weakness  in  blood  and  tears. 
And  the  real  fact  is  that  the  good  opinion  of 
the  best  people  comes  from  your  saying  NO, 
and  not  weakly  yielding  and  putting  your  name 

to  a  subscription,  a  contract  or  an  acknowledg- 

151 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

ment  which  was  none  of  yours,  ^f  Cultivate  self- 
confidence  and  learn  to  say  NO.  It  is  a  great 
thing  to  be  a  man,  but  it  is  a  finer  thing  to  be 
a  master — Master  of  yourself. 

THE   MAN    WHO   NEEDS   No   SUPERVISION 
HAS  ALREADY  SUCCEEDED 

The  Hundred  Point  Man 

THE  other  day  I  wrote  to  a  banker- 
friend  inquiring  as  to  the  responsi 
bility  of  a  certain  person.  The  answer 
came  back,  thus:  "He  is  a  Hundred-Point  man 
in  everything  and  anything  he  undertakes."  I 
read  the  telegram  and  then  pinned  it  up  over 
my  desk  where  I  could  see  it.  That  night  it  sort 
of  stuck  in  my  memory.  I  dreamed  of  it. 
The  next  day  I  showed  the  message  to  a  fellow 
I  know  pretty  well,  and  said,  "I'd  rather  have 
that  said  of  me  than  to  be  called  a  great  this 
or  that."  If  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  has  left  on 
record  the  statement  that  you  could  not  throw 
a  stone  on  Boston  Common  without  caroming 

on  three  poets,  two  essayists,  and  a  playwright. 
152 


HEALTH     AND      WEALTH 

^Hundred-Point  men  are  not  so  plentiful  ^ 
If  A  Hundred -Point  man  is  one  who  is  true 
to  every  trust;  who  keeps  his  word;  who  is 
loyal  to  the  firm  that  employs  him;  who  does 
not  listen  for  insults  nor  look  for  slights;  who 
carries  a  civil  tongue  in  his  head;  who  is  polite 
to  strangers,  without  being  "fresh;"  who  is 
considerate  towards  servants;  who  is  moderate 
in  his  eating  and  drinking;  who  is  willing  to 
learn;  who  is  cautious  and  yet  courageous. 
Hundred-Point  men  may  vary  much  in  ability, 
but  this  is  always  true — they  are  safe  men  to 
deal  with,  whether  drivers  of  drays,  motor  men, 
clerks,  cashiers,  engineers  or  presidents  of  rail 
roads  <$>  <£ 

Paranoics  are  people  who  are  suffering  from 
fatty  enlargement  of  the  ego  ^  They  want  the 
best  seats  in  the  synagogue,  they  demand  bou 
quets,  compliments,  obeisance,  and  in  order  to 
see  what  the  papers  will  say  next  morning,  they 
sometimes  obligingly  commit  suicide. 
The  Paranoic  is  the  antithesis  of  the  Hundred- 
Point  man  ^  The  Paranoic  imagines  he  is 
being  wronged,  that  some  one  has  it  in  for  him 

and  that  the  world  is  down  on  him.  He  is  given 

153 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

to  that  which  is  strange,  peculiar,  uncertain, 

eccentric  and  erratic. 

The  Hundred-Point  man  may  not  look  just 

like  all  other  men,  or  dress  like  them,  or  talk 

like  them,  but  what  he  does  is  true  to  his  own 

nature.  He  is  himself. 

He  is  more  interested  in  doing  his  work  than 

in  what  people  will  say  about  it.  He  does  not 

consider  the  gallery.  He  acts  his  thought  and 

thinks  little  of  the  act. 

I  never  knew  a  Hundred-Point  man  who  was 

not  one  brought  up  from  early  youth  to  make 

himself  useful,  and  to  economize  in  the  matter 

of  time  and  money. 

Necessity  is  ballast. 

The  Paranoic,  almost   without   exception,  is 

one  who  has  been  made  exempt  from  work.  He 

has  been  petted,  waited  upon,  coddled,  cared 

for,  laughed  at  and  chuckled  to. 

The  excellence  of  the  old-fashioned  big  family 

was  that  no  child  got  an  undue  amount  of 

attention  jt  The  antique  idea  that  the  child 

must  work  for  his  parents  until  the  day  he  was 

twenty-one  was  a  deal  better  for  the  youth  than 

to  let  him  get  it  into  his  head  that  his  parents 
154 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

must  work  for  him.  ^f  Nature  intended  that  we 
should  all  be  poor — that  we  should  earn  our 
bread  every  day  before  we  eat  it. 
When  you  find  the  Hundred-Point  man  you 
will  find  one  who  lives  like  a  person  in  moder 
ate  circumstances,  no  matter  what  his  finances 
are.  Every  man  who  thinks  he  has  the  world 
by  the  tail  and  is  about  to  snap  its  demnition 
head  off  for  the  delectation  of  mankind,  is 
unsafe,  no  matter  how  great  his  genius  in  the 
line  of  specialties. 

The  Hundred-Point  man  looks  after  just  one 
individual,  and  that  is  the  man  under  his  own 
hat;  he  is  one  who  does  not  spend  money  until 
he  earns  it;  who  pays  his  way;  who  knows  that 
nothing  is  ever  given  for  nothing;  who  keeps 
his  digits  off  other  people's  property.  When  he 
does  not  know  what  to  say,  why,  he  says  noth 
ing,  and  when  he  does  not  know  what  to  do, 
does  not  do  it  &  We  should  mark  on  moral 
qualities  not  merely  mental  attainment  or  pro 
ficiency,  because  in  the  race  of  life  only  moral 
qualities  count.  We  should  rate  on  judgment, 
application  and  intent  jfc  Men  by  habit  and 
nature  who  are  untrue  to  a  trust,  are  danger- 

155 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

ous  just  in  proportion  as  they  are  clever.  I 
would  like  to  see  a  university  devoted  to  turn 
ing  out  safe  men  instead  of  merely  clever  ones. 
How  would  it  do  for  a  college  to  give  one 
degree,  and  one  only,  to  those  who  are  worthy, 
the  degree  of  H.  P.  ? 

Would  it  not  be  worth  striving  for,  to  have  a 
college  president  say  of  you,  over  his  own  sig 
nature:  "He  is  a  Hundred-Point  man  in  every 
thing  and  anything  that  he  undertakes!" 

ONLY  BY  HELPING  OTHERS  CAN  You  HELP 
YOURSELF 

The    Zeitgeist 

MAURICE  MAETERLINK  says 
that  one  bee  can  never  make  honey, 
for  the  reason  that  a  bee  alone  has 
no  intelligence.  Bees  succeed  only  by  working 
for  the  good  of  other  bees.  A  single  bee,  sepa 
rated  from  the  hive,  is  absolutely  helpless,  yet 
a  hive  of  bees  has  a  very  great  and  well-defined 
purpose  and  intelligence. 
And  this  intelligence,  Maeterlink  calls,  "The 

Spirit  of  the  Hive." 
156 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

Occasionly  a  bee  will  go  off  to  the  fields  and 
come  back  gorged  with  honey,  bringing  noth 
ing  for  the  common  stock,  and  this  bee  is 
quickly  killed—stung  to  death  by  a  self-ap 
pointed  committee  who  sit  on  the  case,  and 
seem  to  consider  that  any  bee  that  loses  sight 
of  the  Spirit  of  the  Hive  and  works  for  private 
good  is  sick,  criminally  insane,  and  cannot  be 
allowed  longer  to  cumber  good  space. 
Now  it  is  quite  probable  that  if  we  could  com 
municate  with  a  bee,  and  ask  it  why  it  makes 
honey,  it  would  say,  "I  make  honey  because  I 
choose  to,"  just  as  Schopenhauer's  boulder 
that  rolled  down  hill  explained  that  it  did  so 
because  it  found  a  peculiar  pleasure  and  satis 
faction  in  so  doing. 

Men  think  they  do  certain  things  because  they 
choose,  but  the  actual  fact  is  they  simply  suc 
cumb  to  the  strongest  attraction  and  call  it 
choice  «jt  Is  n't  a  man  under  the  domain  of 
Natural  Law  just  as  much  as  a  bee  ?  I  think 
so.  The  recognition  of  this  great  truth  con 
cerning  the  Solidarity  of  the  Race,  marks  a 
mental  epoch  in  the  onward  and  upward 
march  jt  & 

157 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

With  the  bee,  there  is  seemingly  no  evolution. 
The  Spirit  of  the  Hive  is  fixed  within  narrow 
limits  e^fc  <£• 

With  man,  the  Spirit  of  the  Hive,  or  if  you  pre 
fer,  the  Spirit  of  the  Times,  or  the  "Zeitgeist," 
is  a  constantly  changing  spiritual  entity. 
Ancient  Athens  was  made  and  controlled  by 
fourteen  men.  But  these  masterly  men«*lid  not 
represent  the  "Zeitgeist,"  nor  were  they  strong 
enough  to  form  the  Spirit  of  the  Hive.  They 
kept  the  many  in  subjection  by  the  seductive 
ecclesiasticon — by  shows,  spectacles,  pomps, 
processions,  and  when  danger  at  home  became 
imminent,  the  mob  was  diverted  by  a  foreign 
war  jt  jfc 

As  long  as  the  actual  "Zeitgeist"  of  Greece 
was  saturated  with  religious  fanaticism,  super 
stition,  a  childish  tantrum  tendency,  a  Harry 
Thaw  and  Harry  Lehr  propensity,  and  an  Old 
Harry  atmosphere,  the  fourteen  great  men  of 
Athens  who  for  just  thirty-six  years  sat  on  the 
lid,  were  in  a  very  dangerous  position. 
The  miracle  is  that  they  kept  the  beast  down 
and  under  long  enough  to  build  the  temples 

and  embellish  them  with  undying  works  of  art. 
158 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

But  they  were  allowed  to  do  their  work  only  by 
pandering  to  the  hoi  polloi  idea  that  the  statues 
represented  the  gods  in  Elysium,  and  that  the 
Pantheon  was  for  the  habitation  of  Zeus  Him 
self.  To  find  the  Deity  in  yourself  by  producing 
Art,  was  a  truth  the  many  could  not  compre 
hend,  and  when  Praxitiles  hinted  at  it,  his 
temerity  cost  him  his  life. 

When  Phidias  placed  his  own  portrait  with 
that  of  Pericles  upon  a  sacred  shield,  the  glory 
'that  was  Greece  got  its  death  sentence. 
The  mumble  of  discontent  grew  into  a  roar. 
Socrates  was  passed  the  hemlock,  and  all  of  the 
fourteen  actual  gods  who  made  the  glory  were 
either  killed  or  ostracized — robbed,  disgraced, 
undone  ^fc  ^ 

The  "Zeitgeist"  had  its  way.  Socrates,  Euclid, 
Pericles,  Phidias,  Herodotus,  Empedocles  and 
Sophocles  no  more  represented  the  Spirit  of 
the  Hive  that  existed  at  Athens,  than  Jesus 
represented  the  "Zeitgeist"  of  Jerusalem  in 
the  age  of  Augustus. 

Savonarola,  Tyndale,  Ridley,  Huss,  Wyclif, 
George  Wishart,  were  martyrs,  all  to  the  Spirit 
of  the  Times. 

159 


HEALTH     AND      WEALTH 

Yet  Socrates,  Jesus,  Savonarola,  Old  John 
Brown,  and  none  of  Freedom's  illustrious  dead 
died  in  vain.  They  died  that  we  might  live;  and 
as  a  single  drop  of  analine  will  tint  an  entire 
cask  of  water,  so  has  the  blood  of  martyrs 
tinted  the  Spirit  of  the  Times  and  given  us  a 
peculiar  and  different  "Zeitgeist"  from  that 
which  we  would  otherwise  have  had. 
The  death  of  Lincoln  created  a  sentiment 
which  the  living  man  could  not,  and  which 
in  time  brought  the  entire  South  to  an  acknowl 
edgment  of  the  righteousness  of  his  cause. 
The  "Zeitgeist"  riot  being  able  to  understand 
or  assimilate  the  doctrines  of  the  seers  and 
prophets,  killed  them.  The  man  who  preaches 
doctrines  or  performs  deeds  contrary  to  the 
Spirit  of  the  Times  is  ever  regarded  as  the 
enemy  of  the  State,  a  menace  to  society,  and 
is  snuffed  out.  Whether  he  be  above  the  law 
or  below  it,  matters  not:  the  saviours  of  the 
world  have  always  been  hanged  between 
thieves,  ^f  This  full,  frank,  free  expression  which 
we  now  enjoy  is  the  precious  legacy  of  a  blood 
stained  past.  And  it  is  for  us,  the  living,  to  see 
that  these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain. 


HEALTH     AND      WEALTH 

Familiarity  breeds  indifference,  if  not  con 
tempt,  and  whether  there  be  men  now  living 
as  great  as  those  fourteen  in  the  time  of  Peri 
cles,  it  would  be  difficult  to  determine. 
But  this  we  know — we  have  a  Spirit  of  the 
Hive  now  that  is  making  honey  honestly,  and 
that  too,  of  a  satisfactory  quality,  while  the 
honey  of  Hymettus  was  made  by  that  immortal 
fourteen  who  worked  by  stealth,  plot,  plan  and 
connivance. 

Our  Spirit  of  the  Times  is  of  a  kind  unequalled 
in  history.  We  have  thousands  upon  thousands 
of  men  and  women  who  are  thinking  great  and 
noble  thoughts  and  doing  great  and  splendid 
work  ,^t  <£ 

Our  "Zeitgeist"  is  sensitive,  restless,  alert, 
impressionable,  progressive,  and  is  making 
for  righteousness.  The  man  who  can  imagine 
a  better  religion  than  now  exists,  is  allowed  to 
throw  his  vision  on  the  screen,  and  he  who  can 
imagine  a  better  government  than  we  now 
have,  is  not  hanged  for  his  pains,  but  is 
allowed  to  express  his  dream. 
Public  opinion  rules.  No  law  that  is  contrary 
to  the  "Zeitgeist"  can  be  enforced  jt  Judges 

161 


HEALTH     AND     WEALTH 

translate  and  interpret  the  laws  to  suit  the 
Spirit  of  the  Times. 

Every  man  who  speaks  out  loud  and  clear  is 
tinting  the  "Zeitgeist."  Every  man  who  expres 
ses  what  he  honestly  thinks  is  true,  is  changing 
the  Spirit  of  the  Times.  Thinkers  help  other 
people  to  think,  for  they  formulate  what  others 
are  thinking.  No  person  writes  or  thinks  alone 
—thought  is  in  the  air,  but  its  expression  is 
necessary  to  create  a  tangible  Spirit  of  the 
Times.  The  value  of  a  thinker  who  writes,  or  a 
writer  who  thinks,  is  that  he  supplies  argu 
ments  for  the  people  and  confirms  all  who 
are  on  his  wire  in  opinions  often  before  uttered. 


162 


So  here  endeth  the  book,  Health  and 
Elbert  Hubbard,  now  done  into  enduring  print 
by  The  Roy  crofters,  at  their  Shop  which  is  in 
East  Aurora,  Erie  County,  New  York,  mcmviii 


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